Now the subject of the Netflix documentary The Devil Next DoorThe incredible story of the most convoluted legal odyssey involving Nazi war crimesIn 2009, Harper's Magazine sent war-crimes expert Lawrence Douglas to Munich to cover the last chapter of the lengthiest case ever to arise from the Holocaust: the trial of eighty-nine-year-old John Demjanjuk.
In Erased, Omer Bartov uncovers the rapidly disappearing vestiges of the Jews of western Ukraine, who were rounded up and murdered by the Nazis during World War II with help from the local populace.
A panoramic social history of hurricanes in the CaribbeanThe diverse cultures of the Caribbean have been shaped as much by hurricanes as they have by diplomacy, commerce, or the legacy of colonial rule.
A major history of the shtetl's golden ageThe shtetl was home to two-thirds of East Europe's Jews in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, yet it has long been one of the most neglected and misunderstood chapters of the Jewish experience.
The Reign of Terror continues to fascinate scholars as one of the bloodiest periods in French history, when the Committee of Public Safety strove to defend the first Republic from its many enemies, creating a climate of fear and suspicion in revolutionary France.
This book presents a synthetic history of the family--the most basic building block of medieval Jewish communities--in Germany and northern France during the High Middle Ages.
The Color of Success tells of the astonishing transformation of Asians in the United States from the "e;yellow peril"e; to "e;model minorities"e;--peoples distinct from the white majority but lauded as well-assimilated, upwardly mobile, and exemplars of traditional family values--in the middle decades of the twentieth century.
A historical overview of the census race question-and a bold proposal for eliminating itAmerica is preoccupied with race statistics-perhaps more than any other nation.
Ancient Greek literature, Athenian civic ideology, and modern classical scholarship have all worked together to reinforce the idea that there were three neatly defined status groups in classical Athens--citizens, slaves, and resident foreigners.
Demonstrating that similarities between Jewish and Christian art in the Middle Ages were more than coincidental, Cultural Exchange meticulously combines a wide range of sources to show how Jews and Christians exchanged artistic and material culture.
In this sweeping study, Julie Hessler traces the invention and evolution of socialist trade, the progressive constriction of private trade, and the development of consumer habits from the 1917 revolution to Stalin's death in 1953.
Following the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and the re-introduction of Sharica law relating to gender and the family, women's rights in Iran suffered a major setback.
A new intellectual history that looks at "e;Jewish self-hatred"e;Today, the term "e;Jewish self-hatred"e; often denotes a treasonous brand of Jewish self-loathing, and is frequently used as a smear, such as when it is applied to politically moderate Jews who are critical of Israel.
Two trends are dramatically altering the American political landscape: growing immigration and the rising prominence of independent and nonpartisan voters.
How southern members of Congress remade the United States in their own image after the Civil WarNo question has loomed larger in the American experience than the role of the South.
The lasting effects of slavery on contemporary political attitudes in the American SouthDespite dramatic social transformations in the United States during the last 150 years, the South has remained staunchly conservative.
A sweeping account of what medieval life was like for ordinary peopleIn The Axe and the Oath, one of the world's leading medieval historians presents a compelling picture of daily life in the Middle Ages as it was experienced by ordinary people.
How American respectability has been built by maligning those who don't make the gradeHow did Americans come to think of themselves as respectable members of the middle class?
Recovering the lost history of a crucial era in African American literatureThe Indignant Generation is the first narrative history of the neglected but essential period of African American literature between the Harlem Renaissance and the civil rights era.
In the 1930s and 1940s, rural reformers in the United States and Mexico waged unprecedented campaigns to remake their countrysides in the name of agrarian justice and agricultural productivity.
The first in-depth look at how postwar thinkers in Egypt mapped the intersections between Islamic discourses and psychoanalytic thoughtIn 1945, psychologist Yusuf Murad introduced an Arabic term borrowed from the medieval Sufi philosopher and mystic Ibn 'Arabi-al-la-shu'ur-as a translation for Sigmund Freud's concept of the unconscious.
The social practice of tact was an invention of the nineteenth century, a period when Britain was witnessing unprecedented urbanization, industrialization, and population growth.
The globalizing influence of professional sportsProfessional sports today have truly become a global force, a common language that anyone, regardless of their nationality, can understand.
A history of the twentieth-century feminists who fought for the rights of women, workers, and the poor, both in the United States and abroadFor the Many presents an inspiring look at how US women and their global allies pushed the nation and the world toward justice and greater equality for all.
This book takes a fascinating look at the iconic figure of the Native American in the British cultural imagination from the Revolutionary War to the early twentieth century, and examining how Native Americans regarded the British, as well as how they challenged their own cultural image in Britain during this period.
An urban history of modern Britain, and how the built environment shaped the nation's politicsFoundations is a history of twentieth-century Britain told through the rise, fall, and reinvention of six different types of urban space: the industrial estate, shopping precinct, council estate, private flats, shopping mall, and suburban office park.
An innovative history of deep social and economic changes in France, told through the story of a single extended family across five generationsMarie Aymard was an illiterate widow who lived in the provincial town of Angouleme in southwestern France, a place where seemingly nothing ever happened.
A detailed historical look at how copyright was negotiated and protected by authors, publishers, and the state in late imperial and modern ChinaIn Pirates and Publishers, Fei-Hsien Wang reveals the unknown social and cultural history of copyright in China from the 1890s through the 1950s, a time of profound sociopolitical changes.
How businesses and other organizations can improve their performance by tapping the power of differences in how people thinkWhat if workforce diversity is more than simply the right thing to do?
An essential work of the cinematic history of the Weimar Republic by a leading figure of film criticismFirst published in 1947, From Caligari to Hitler remains an undisputed landmark study of the rich cinematic history of the Weimar Republic.
How beef conquered America and gave rise to the modern industrial food complexBy the late nineteenth century, Americans rich and poor had come to expect high-quality fresh beef with almost every meal.
Sie waren noch Kinder, und die Schrecken des Krieges waren ihr Alltag: Mit großem Einfühlungsvermögen schildert Hilke Lorenz das Aufwachsen inmitten von Flucht, Vertreibung, Bombennächten, Hunger und Tod.
In the summer of 1964, while a military coup was taking place and tanks were rolling through the streets of Algiers, Robert Irwin set off for Algeria in search of Sufi enlightenment.
Between the mid-18th and mid-19th centuries, Britain evolved from a substantial international power yet relative artistic backwater into a global superpower and a leading cultural force in Europe.