New Books In German Studies

Patricia Anne Simpson joins Jana Byars to talk about Early Modern Women's Work: Kinship, Community, and Social Justice (Routledge, 2025). The book examines the contributions of female writers, artists, scientists, religious leaders, and patrons who engaged in entrepreneurial, intellectual, and emotional labor in German-speaking Europe. Through individual and collective authorship, the women analyzed in this study assert a claim to kinship and community, often beyond the hegemonic, heteronormative relationships to family, religion, and monarch. The contributions of early modern women to the construction of productive work spaces and the establishment of intellectual and actual communities are often overlooked or underestimated in scholarship on this period. This book serves as a cultural corrective to suppositions of gender-coded work, because alongside the dominant history of the private sphere as a feminine domain, a counter-narrative emerges with collective authorship. Despite the disparities in their biogr

Adorno and the Ban on Images (Bloomsbury, 2022) upends some of the myths that have come to surround the work of the philosopher Theodor W. Adorno – not least amongst them, his supposed fatalism. Sebastian Truskolaski argues that Adorno's writings allow us to address what is arguably the central challenge of modern philosophy: how to picture a world beyond suffering and injustice without, at the same time, betraying its vital impulse. By re-appraising Adorno's writings on politics, philosophy, and art, this book reconstructs this notoriously difficult author's overall project from a radically new perspective (Adorno's famous 'standpoint of redemption'), and brings his central concerns to bear on the problems of today. On the one hand, this means reading Adorno alongside his principal interlocutors (including Kant, Marx and Benjamin). On the other hand, it means asking how his secular brand of social criticism can serve to safeguard the image of a better world – above all, when the invocation of this image occu

In the West, World War II is commonly understood as the Allies’ struggle against Nazism. Often elided, if not simply forgotten, is the Soviet Union’s crucial role in that fight. With this book, acclaimed historian Jochen Hellbeck rectifies this omission by relocating the ideological core of the conflict. It was not the Western powers but Communist Russia that Nazi Germany viewed as an existential threat—in fact, “World Enemy No. 1.” Jewish revolutionaries, the Nazis believed, had seized power in 1917 and were preparing the Soviet state to destroy Germany and the world. And so, on June 22, 1941, a German army of three million attacked the Soviet Union to exterminate “Judeo-Bolshevism,” Hitler’s cardinal obsession. While Europe’s Jews were expelled, exiled, and persecuted by the Nazis, Soviet Jews were immediately slated for elimination. The Soviet lands thus became ground zero for systematic extermination, which was only later extended to all Jews, igniting the Holocaust.Hellbeck plumbs newly declassified arch

Historic quarters in cities and towns across the middle of Europe were devastated during the Second World War—some, like those of Warsaw and Frankfurt, had to be rebuilt almost completely. They are now centers of peace and civility that attract millions of tourists, but the stories they tell about places, peoples, and nations are selective. They are never the whole story. These old towns and their turbulent histories have been key sites in Europe’s ongoing theater of politics and war. Exploring seven old towns, from Frankfurt and Prague to Vilnius in Lithuania, the acclaimed writer Marek Kohn examines how they have been used since the Second World War to conceal political tensions and reinforce certain versions of history. Uncovering hidden stories behind these old and old-seeming façades in The Stories Old Towns Tell: A Journey through Cities at the Heart of Europe (Yale University Press, 2023), Dr. Kohn offers us a new understanding of the politics of European history-making—showing how our visits to old to

The Good Forest: The Salzburgers, Success, and the Plan for Georgia (U Georgia Press, 2024) explores some of Georgia’s earliest settlers, the Salzburgers.  Georgia, the last of Britain’s American mainland colonies, began with high aspirations to create a morally sound society based on small family farms with no enslaved workers. But those goals were not realized, and Georgia became a slave plantation society, following the Carolina model. This trajectory of failure is well known. But looking at the Salzburgers, who emigrated from Europe as part of the original plan, provides a very different story.  The Good Forest reveals the experiences of the Salzburger migrants who came to Georgia with the support of British and German philanthropy, where they achieved self-sufficiency in the Ebenezer settlement while following the Trustees’ plans. Because their settlement comprised a significant portion of Georgia’s early population, their experiences provide a corrective to our understanding of early Georgia and help

The pig played a fundamental role in the German Democratic Republic's attempts to create and sustain a modern, industrial food system built on communist principles. By the mid-1980s, East Germany produced more pork per capita than West Germany and the UK, while also suffering myriad unintended consequences of this centrally planned practice: manure pollution, animal disease, and rolling food shortages. In Communist Pigs: An Animal History of East Germany's Rise and Fall (University of Washington Press, 2020), historian Thomas Fleischman uncovers three types of pig that played roles in this history: the industrial pig, remade to suit the conditions of factory farming; the wild boar, whose overpopulation was a side effect of agricultural development rather than a conservation success story; and the garden pig, reflective of the regime's growing acceptance of private, small-scale farming within the planned economy. Fleischman chronicles East Germany's journey from family farms to factory farms, explaining how co

Entrenched in the myth of being victim of the Nazi aggression, Austrian elites pursued a politics of memory that symbolically shook off any responsibility for the emergence, development and consequences of National Socialism. Authors of the vast majority of films produced early after 1945 were not interested in dealing with the recent Nazi past of their country. There were, however, exceptions. Through detailed analysis of the narratives, stylistic patterns and reception of films that were set during or immediately after World War II, Remembering National Socialism in Austrian Post-war Film" (1945-1955) (Brill, 2025) explains how cinema corroborated Austrian national self-stereotypes, at the same time offering a critique of the Nazi regime. Guest: Jakub Gortat (he/him) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of German Studies at the University of Lodz. Host: Jenna Pittman (she/her), a Ph.D. student in the Department of History at Duke University. She studies modern European history, political economy, a

Kenneth G. Appold joins Jana Byars to talk about his new book, Luther and the Peasants: Religion, Ritual, and the Revolt of 1525 (Oxford UP, 2025).  The German Peasants' Revolts of 1525 were a defining moment both for the Protestant Reformation and the history of European culture. But while the conflicts are well-studied, they are typically analyzed today from political and socioeconomic perspectives, whereas the protagonists themselves framed them in religious and theological terms. Luther and the Peasants takes these perspectives seriously to offer a novel and timely reinterpretation of the uprisings. A detailed examination of peasants' religious lives reveals commitments to peace, social harmony, and the environment that came into conflict with spiritual priorities of the Protestant Reformation, notably with those of Martin Luther. Drawing on the peasants' own documents, such as the famous manifesto The Twelve Articles, the book provides a thorough re-examination their actions, including their negotiations

Winston Churchill famously remarked that the threat of the German U-Boats was the only thing that had “really frightened” him during World War Two. The U-Boats certainly claimed a bitter harvest among Allied shipping: nearly 3,000 ships were sunk, for a total tonnage of over 14 million tonnes, nearly 70% of Allied shipping losses in all theatres of the war. With justification, then, they are an integral part of the traditional narrative of the Battle of the Atlantic; a story of technological brilliance, dramatic sinkings, life and death, and – of course – the sinister, unseen threat of the U-Boats themselves. For Allied seamen during the war, the U-Boat was a hidden menace, a faceless killer lurking beneath the waves; and the urgent needs of survival afforded them little time or energy to consider the challenges and privations of their enemy. History, however, affords us that time and energy, and any pretence of comprehensiveness demands that we consider what life was like for the crews of those most claustr

In his new book, The First Soldier: Hitler as a Military Leader (Yale University Press, 2018), Stephen Fritz professor of history at East Tennessee State University reexamines Hitler as a military commander and strategist. That Hitler saw World War II as the only way to retrieve Germany’s fortunes and build an expansionist Thousand-Year Reich is uncontroversial. But while his generals did sometimes object to Hitler’s tactics and operational direction, they often made the same errors in judgment and were in agreement regarding larger strategic and political goals. A necessary volume for understanding the influence of World War I on Hitler’s thinking, this work is also an eye-opening reappraisal of major events like the invasion of Russia and the battle for Normandy. Craig Sorvillo is a PhD candidate in modern European history at the University of Florida. He specializes in Nazi Germany, and the Holocaust. He can be reached at craig.sorvillo@gmail.com or on twitter @craig_sorvillo. Learn more about your ad cho

In his new book, Plots Against Hitler (Eamon Dolan/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016), Danny Orbach, Senior Lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem offers a profound and complete examination of the plots to assassinate Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. A riveting narrative of the organization, conspiracy, and sacrifices made by those who led the resistance against Hitler. Orbach deftly analyzes the mixed motives, moral ambiguities and organizational vulnerability that marked their work, while reminding us forcefully of their essential bravery and rightness. And he challenges us to ask whether we would have summoned the same courage. Craig Sorvillo is a PhD candidate in modern European history at the University of Florida. He specializes in Nazi Germany, and the Holocaust. He can be reached at craig.sorvillo@gmail.comor on twitter @craig_sorvillo. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/german-studie

Driving Productivity: Automation, Labor, and Industrial Development in the United States and Germany (Brill, 2025) reconstructs the industrial histories of the American and German automotive industries in a new light. From the Fordist assembly line to Japanese lean production and Industry 4.0, Anthony J. Knowles critically examines major technical developments within the historical dynamics of capitalism. Both countries face the pressure to automate, transform labor, and increase efficiency, yet their responses differ due to divergent paradigms of integrating business, labor, and government. Driving Productivity makes the case that improving productivity is a never-ending process that becomes a compulsory social imperative that industries must respond to but are nevertheless responded to differently between countries. Guest: Anthony Knowles (he/him) is a Teaching Assistant Professor in Sociology and a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Center for Transportation Research at the University of Tennessee. Host: Jen

The extensive research literature on race has paid little attention to Armenians. Between the two world wars, they had to prove that they were free white persons to ensure their naturalization in the United States, while in Nazi Germany they needed to document that they were stakeholders of the Aryan race to safeguard their existence. Vartan Matiossian's book is the first comprehensive account of a mostly untold story of dehumanization and racism in Europe and America that enhanced the racial and moral profiling of Armenians as undesirables. The Color of Choice: The Armenians and the Politics of Race in the United States and Germany (1890-1945) (Brill, 2025) frames this development within the context of the debates on whiteness and immigration in the United States culminating in the Immigration Act of 1924 and the xenophobic discourse in Germany before and during Nazism likening Armenians to Jews. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! h

David Whitford joins Jana Byars to talk about his new book, The Making of a Reformation Man: Martin Luther and the Construction of Masculinity (Routledge, 2025). This volume explores how Martin Luther's life and teachings reshaped and redefined masculinity during the Reformation, offering a more nuanced portrayal of him as a man grappling with the complexities of fatherhood, marriage, and the battlegrounds of religious controversy. This book demonstrates how Luther forged a new ideal of Christian manhood by examining his struggles with monastic vows, his transformation of the household as a spiritual center, and his reshaping of male authority. Integrating insights from cultural historians, gender studies, and feminist scholarship, Whitford analyzes the intersections of gender, power, and religion during a time of profound social upheaval and change. Through Luther's personal transformation, this book reveals how early Protestant ideals of masculinity were intricately tied to broader religious, political, and

This open access book is about Mozambicans and Angolans who migrated in state-sponsored schemes to East Germany in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s. They went to work and to be trained as a vanguard labor force for the intended African industrial revolutions. While they were there, they contributed their labor power to the East German economy. This book draws on more than 260 life history interviews and uncovers complex and contradictory experiences and transnational encounters. What emerges is a series of dualities that exist side by side in the memories of the former migrants: the state and the individual, work and consumption, integration and exclusion, loss and gain, and the past in the past and the past in the present and future. By uncovering these dualities, the book explores the lives of African migrants moving between the Third and Second worlds. Devoted to the memories of worker-trainees, this transnational study comes at a time when historians are uncovering the many varied, complicated, and

In Jón Leifs and the Musical Invention of Iceland (Indiana University Press, 2019), Árni Heimir Ingólfsson provides a striking account of the dramatic career of Iceland's iconic composer. Leifs (1899–1968) was the first Icelander to devote himself fully to composition at a time when a local music scene was only beginning to take form. He was a fervent nationalist in his art, fashioning an idiosyncratic and uncompromising 'Icelandic' sound from traditions of vernacular music with the aim to legitimize Iceland as an independent, culturally empowered nation. In addition to exploring Leifs's career, Ingólfsson provides detailed descriptions of Leifs's major works and their cultural contexts. Leifs's music was inspired by the Icelandic landscape and includes auditory depictions of volcanos, geysers, and waterfalls. The raw quality of his orchestral music is frequently enhanced by an expansive percussion section, including anvils, stones, sirens, bells, ships' chains, shotguns, and cannons. Largely neglected i

Shedding light on the origins of the Second World War in Europe, Stalin's Gamble: The Search for Allies Against Hitler, 1930-1936 (University of Toronto Press, 2023) aims to create a historical narrative of the relations of the USSR with Britain, France, the United States, Poland, Germany, Italy, Czechoslovakia, and Romania during the 1930s. The book explores the Soviet Union's efforts to organize a defensive alliance against Nazi Germany, in effect rebuilding the anti-German Entente of the First World War. Drawing on extensive research in Soviet as well as Western archives, Michael Jabara Carley offers an in-depth account of the diplomatic manoeuvrings which surrounded the rise of Hitler and Soviet efforts to construct an alliance against future German aggression. Paying close attention to the beliefs and interactions of senior politicians and diplomats, the book seeks to replace one-sided Western histories with records from both sides. The book also offers an inside look at Soviet foreign policy making,

Namibia’s colonial history casts a long shadow over the country’s present. Contemporary authors and artists confront the legacies of German and South African colonial rule and engage creatively with the persistent remnants of the past. In their works, the archive remains both an invaluable and fraught resource for accessing obscured histories.  In Troubling Archives: History and Memory in Namibian Literature and Art (Transcript, 2025) Julia Rensing examines how writers and artists from Namibia and South Africa navigate archival silences, omissions, and power structures to renegotiate historical narratives and address intergenerational trauma. Their creative practices challenge conventional understandings of archives and forms of commemoration, highlighting the diverse experiences that shape Namibian society and memory cultures. This book is available open access. Download a free PDF from the publisher's website. Some of the artists and artworks discussed in this book and interview include: Ulla Dentlin

Still Lives: Jewish Photography in Nazi Germany (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025) is a systematic study of the ways Jews used photographs to document their experiences in the face of National Socialism. In a time of intensifying anti-Jewish rhetoric and policies, German Jews documented their lives and their environment in tens of thousands of photographs. German Jews of considerably diverse backgrounds took and preserved these photographs: professional and amateurs, of different ages, gender, and classes. The book argues that their previously overlooked photographs convey otherwise unuttered views, emotions, and self-perceptions. Based on a database of more than fifteen thousand relevant images, it analyzes photographs within the historical contexts of their production, preservation, and intended viewing, and explores a plethora of Jews’ reactions to the changing landscapes of post-1933 Germany. Ofer Ashkenazi is a Professor of History and the director of the Richard Koebner-Minerva Center for German History at t

The Maginot Line was a marvel of 1930s engineering. The huge forts, up to eighty meters underground, contained hospitals, modern kitchens, telephone exchanges, and even electric trains. Kilometres of underground galleries led to casements hidden in the terrain, and turrets that rose from the ground to fire upon the enemy. The fortifications were invulnerable to the heaviest artillery and to chemical warfare. Despite this extensive preparation, France fell to Germany in a little under six weeks. Eight decades on, the Maginot Line is still remembered as an expensively misguided response to obvious danger. In The Maginot Line: A New History (Yale University Press, 2025), Dr. Kevin Passmore presents a groundbreaking account reevaluating the Maginot Line. He traces the controversies surrounding construction, the lives of the men who manned the forts, the impact on German-speaking inhabitants of the frontier, and the fight against espionage from within. Far from a backward step, the Maginot Line was an ambitious