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Books > History > European history
This work explores the value of the motorcycle to communications,
and how the despatch rider helped prevent German victory.
Vicky Unwin had always known her father - an erstwhile intelligence
officer and respected United Nations diplomat - was Czech, but it
was not until a stranger turned up on her doorstep that she
discovered he was also Jewish. So began a quest to discover the
truth about his past - one that perhaps would help answer the
niggling doubts she had always had about her 'perfect' father.
Finally persuading him to allow her to open a closely guarded cache
of family books and papers, Vicky discovered the identity of her
grandfather: the tormented author and diplomat Hermann Ungar,
hugely controversial in both life and in death, who was a protege
and possible lover of Thomas Mann, and a friend of Berthold Brecht
and Stefan Zweig. How much of her father's child was Vicky - and
how much of his father's child was he? As Vicky worked to uncover
deeply buried family secrets, she would find herself slowly
unpicking the lingering power of 'survivors' guilt' on the
generations that followed the Holocaust, and would learn, via a
deathbed confession, of the existence of a previously unknown
sister. Together, the sisters attempted to come to terms with what
had made their father into the deeply flawed, complex, yet
charismatic man he has always been, journeying together through
grief and heartache towards forgiveness.
For two decades after the civil war the Franco regime applied
systematic historical propaganda and imposed relentless repression
of history professionals. In the 1960s and 1970s, however, the
balance shifted from all-pervading propaganda to structural but
flexible censorship. Gradually and reluctantly, the regime had to
give back the initiative for explaining the recent past to where it
belonged: to the professional historians, but not without oversee
and livelihood threat. In its efforts to keep control, the regime
could count on historians who were willing to censor their more
adventurous colleagues. But the outcome of this process was biased
and uncertain. The main issue was always whether an author could be
considered a friend of the regime. Personal interventions by Franco
himself regularly played a decisive role. Historians fully loyal to
the regime and its aims were published without difficulty; others
took a reformist path, albeit without endangering the dominant
interpretation that favoured the tropes of inevitability and
positive consequences of Francos rebellion. Reformist historians
avoided criticism of the personal integrity of the dictator and the
army, and did not address the issue of systematically planned
terror in Francos National Zone during the Civil War. Historians
who dared to embrace these topics were condemned to write from
abroad. Historical works dealing with the Spanish Civil War
(19361939) have been regularly studied in-depth. Dutch historian
Jan van Muilekom provides a wider perspective by viewing the Franco
historiography from the time of the preceding Second Republic
(1931-1936). His analysis recognizes the crucial 1939-1952 period
where Franco consolidated his seizure of power. The research is
based on a wealth of published censored books, unpublished
manuscripts, censorship archives and historical propaganda
material. The book is an important complement to earlier studies
that mainly dealt with the regimes dealing with the press, the film
industry and literature. Over a span of four decades, Franco never
lost his grip on how recent Spanish history should be read.
Exploring the historiography of the regime provides multiple
insights into the links between authoritarianism and censorship.
While the French Revolution has been much discussed and studied,
its impact on religious life in France is rather neglected. Yet,
during this brief period, religion underwent great changes that
affected everyone: clergy and laypeople, men and women, Catholics,
Protestants and Jews. The "Reigns of Terror" of the Revolution
drove the Church underground, permanently altering the relationship
between Church and State. In this book, Nigel Aston offers a guide
to these tumultuous events. While the structures and beliefs of the
Catholic Church are central, it does not neglect minority groups
like Protestants and Jews. Among other features, the book discusses
the Constitutional Church, the end of state support for
Catholicism, the "Dechristianization" campaign and the Concordat of
1801-2. Key themes discussed include the capacity of all the
Churches for survival and adaptation, the role of religion in
determining political allegiances during the Revolution, and the
turbulence of Church-State relations. In this study, based on the
latest evidence, Aston sheds new light on a dynamic period in
European history and its impact on the next 200 years of religious
life in France.
A memoir about a Jewish girl growing up in Germany before and
during Hitler's seizure of power, her escape to Palestine and her
subsequent life in Britain after she married an English soldier.
Later in life she came to devote herself to the education of the
young in Germany and Britain on how the horrors of the Third Reich
came into being.
In an era when women were supposed to be disciplined and obedient, Anna proved to be neither. Defying 16th-century social mores, she was the frequent subject of gossip because of her immodest dress and flirtatious behavior. When her wealthy father discovered that she was having secret, simultaneous affairs with a young nobleman and a cavalryman, he turned her out of the house in rage, but when she sued him for financial support, he had her captured, returned home and chained to a table as punishment. Anna eventually escaped and continued her suit against her father, her siblings and her home town in a bitter legal battle that was to last 30 years and end only upon her death. Drawn from her surviving love letters and court records, The Burgermeister's Daughter is a fascinating examination of the politics of sexuality, gender and family in the 16th century, and a powerful testament to the courage and tenacity of a woman who defied the inequalities of this distant age.
Six million-- a number impossible to visualize. Six million Jews were killed in Europe between the years 1933 and 1945. What can that number mean to us today? We can that number mean to us today? We are told never to forget the Holocaust, but how can we remember something so incomprehensible?
We can think, not of the numbers, the statistics, but of the people. For the families torn apart, watching mothers, fathers, children disappear or be slaughtered, the numbers were agonizingly comprehensible. One. Two. Three. Often more. Here are the stories of thode people, recorded in letters and diaries, and in the memories of those who survived. Seen through their eyes, the horror becomes real. We cannot deny it--and we can never forget.
‘Based on diaries, letters, songs, and history books, a moving account of Jewish suffering in Nazi Germany before and during World War II.’ —Best Books for Young Adults Committee (ALA). ‘A noted historian writes on a subject ignored or glossed over in most texts. . . . Now that youngsters are acquainted with the horrors of slavery, they are more prepared to consider the questions the Holocaust raises for us today.’ —Language Arts. ‘[An] extraordinarily fine and moving book.’ —NYT. Notable Children's Books of 1976 (ALA) Best of the Best Books (YA) 1970–1983 (ALA) 1976 Boston Globe–Horn Book Award for Nonfiction Best Books of 1976 (SLJ) Outstanding Children's Books of 1976 (NYT) Notable 1976 Children's Trade Books in Social Studies (NCSS/CBC) 1977 Jane Addams Award Nominee, 1977 National Book Award for Children's Literature IBBY International Year of the Child Special Hans Christian Andersen Honors List Children's Books of 1976 (Library of Congress) 1976 Sidney Taylor Book Award (Association of Jewish Libraries)
Accompanying this wealth of detailed information are over 100 black
and white photographs, illustrations and maps, plus a list of
Azerbaijani proverbs, suggestions for further reading, a chronology
of Azerbaijani historical events, and a discography.
Over 16 million copies sold worldwide 'One of the most remarkable
books I have ever read' Susan Jeffers One of the outstanding
classics to emerge from the Holocaust, Man's Search for Meaning is
Viktor Frankl's story of his struggle for survival in Auschwitz and
other Nazi concentration camps. Today, this remarkable tribute to
hope offers us an avenue to finding greater meaning and purpose in
our own lives.
As early as the third century, St Maurice-an Egyptian-became leader
of the legendary Roman Theban Legion. Ever since, there have been
richly varied encounters between those defined as 'Africans' and
those called 'Europeans'. Yet Africans and African Europeans are
still widely believed to be only a recent presence in Europe.
Olivette Otele traces a long African European heritage through the
lives of individuals both ordinary and extraordinary. She uncovers
a forgotten past, from Emperor Septimius Severus, to enslaved
Africans living in Europe during the Renaissance, and all the way
to present-day migrants moving to Europe's cities. By exploring a
history that has been long overlooked, she sheds light on questions
very much alive today-on racism, identity, citizenship, power and
resilience. African Europeans is a landmark account of a crucial
thread in Europe's complex history.
Riche de ses editeurs scolaires et de ses collections enfantines,
le dix-neuvieme siecle a-t-il invente le marche du livre pour
enfants? Dans la France du dix-huitieme siecle, de nombreux acteurs
s'efforcent deja de separer, au sein de la librairie, les lectures
adaptees aux enfants et aux jeunes gens. Les rituels pedagogiques
des colleges et des petites ecoles, les strategies commerciales des
libraires, les preoccupations des Eglises, les projets et les
politiques de reforme scolaire, tous pousses par la fievre
educative de la noblesse et de la bourgeoisie, produisent alors
d'innombrables bibliotheques enfantines, plurielles et plastiques,
avec ou sans murs. Cet ouvrage montre comment, a un ordre des
livres domine par les logiques des institutions scolaires et des
metiers du livre, se surimpose a partir des annees 1760 une
nouvelle categorie, celle du " livre d'education ", qui ne
s'identifie plus a un lieu, mais a un projet de lecture, et
s'accompagne de l'emergence de nouvelles figures d'auteurs. Alors
que les etudes sur la litterature de jeunesse poursuivent partout
leur developpement et leur structuration, ce livre dialogue avec
les dernieres recherches europeennes sur la question. A l'inverse
des travaux litteraires, il part, non des auteurs et des textes,
mais des objets et de leurs manipulations. Son originalite est
d'apporter un regard historien sur ces questions, en articulant
histoire du livre et de la librairie, histoire de l'education,
histoire des milieux litteraires et de la condition d'auteur. ---
With its wealth of educational publishers and children's
collections, did the nineteenth century invent the children's book
market? In eighteenth-century France, many people were already
trying to separate the literature suitable for children and young
people within the bookstore. The pedagogical rituals of colleges
and small schools, the commercial strategies of booksellers, the
concerns of the churches, the projects and policies of school
reform, all driven by the educational fever of the nobility and the
bourgeoisie, produced countless children's libraries, plural and
plastic, with or without walls. At the beginning of the century,
the ordering of books was dominated by the rationale of educational
institutions and the book trade: this book shows how a new category
emerged from the 1760s onwards, that of the "educational book",
which was no longer identified with a place, but with a literacy
project, and which was accompanied by the emergence of new authors.
As studies on children's literature continue to be developed and
shaped in many areas, this book is in dialogue with the latest
European research on the subject. In contrast to literary studies,
this research does not start from authors and texts, but from
objects and their uses. Its originality lies in the fact that it
provides a historical perspective on these issues, articulating the
history of books and bookshops, the history of education, the
history of literary circles and the status of the author.
At the end of the Spanish Civil War the Nationalist government
instigated mass repression against anyone suspected of loyalty to
the defeated Republican side. Around 200,000 people were imprisoned
for political crimes, including thousands of women who were charged
with offences ranging from directing the home front to supporting
their loved ones engaged in combat. Many women wrote and published
texts about their experiences, seeking to make their voices heard
and to counteract the dehumanising master narrative of the
right-wing victors that had criminalised their existence. The
memoirs of Communist women, such as Tomasa Cuevas and Juana Dona,
have heavily influenced our understanding of life in prison for
women under franquismo, while texts by non-Communist women have
largely been ignored. Narratives of Resistance and Survival offers
a comparative study of the life writing of female political
prisoners in Spain, focusing on six texts in particular: the two
volumes of Carcel de mujeres by Tomasa Cuevas; Desde la noche y la
niebla by Juana Dona; Requiem por la libertad by Angeles Garcia
Madrid; Abajo las dictaduras by Josefa Garcia Segret; and Aquello
sucedio asi by Angeles Malonda. All the texts share common themes,
such as the hunger and repression that political prisoners
suffered. However, the ideologically-driven narratives of Communist
women often foreground representations of resistance at the expense
of exploring the emotional and intellectual struggle for survival
that many women political prisoners faced in the aftermath of the
war. This study nuances our understanding of imprisoned women as
individuals and as a collective, analysing how they sought
recognition and justice in the face of a vindictive dictatorship.
It also explores their response to the spirit of convivencia during
the transition to democracy, which once again threatened to silence
them. Published in association with the Canada Blanch Centre for
Contemporary Spanish Studies
For thousands of years Portugal has been the point of arrival and
departure for peoples, cultures, languages, ideas, fashions,
behaviours, beliefs, institutions and produce. While its
miscegenation and global multimodal activity enriched the world in
many ways, it also provoked violence, war, suffering and
resistance. The Global History of Portugal contains 93 chapters
grouped into five parts: Pre-history, Antiquity, Middle Ages, Early
Modern period and Modern World. Each chapter begins with an event,
interpreted in the light of global history. Each part opens with an
introduction, offering a perspective of the period in question. The
three Editors, five Scientific Coordinators (Joao Luis Cardoso,
Carlos Fabiao, Bernardo Vasconcelos e Sousa, Catia Antunes and
Antonio Costa Pinto) and ninety Contributors offer a critical and
analytical synthesis of the history that originated in Portuguese
territory or passed through it, stimulating the process of
encounter and dis-encounter in todays global world. The history
presented gives special attention to the world that moulded
Portugal and the Portuguese, and to the ways Portugal configured
the world. It seeks to identify and understand the transversal
entanglements of historic impact and the impulses these gave to the
construction of Portugal and the world. Contemporary reflection and
academic scholarship on the global history of leading nations has
stimulated a rethinking of the past and a more comprehensive
recognition of legacy. Historians can no longer overlook the wider
world with which their country of investigation has interacted.
Portugals role in the dynamic circulation of peoples and ideas
makes it global history not only unique by way of what took place
but also in terms of a potential academic template for better
understanding of how the past shapes the present, and more
particularly the importance of acknowledging a countrys past
historic mis-steps and how these are dealt with by contemporary
populations.
For centuries the society and politics of Old Regime Europe relied
on the strong connection between past, present, and future and on a
belief in the unstoppable continuity of time. What happened during
the eighteenth century when the Age of Revolutions claimed to
cancel the previous social order and announced the dawn of a new
era? This book explores how antiquarianism provided new political
bodies with allegedly time-hallowed traditions and so served as a
source of legitimacy for reshaping European politics. The love for
antiquities forged a common language of political communication
within a burgeoning public sphere. To understand why this happened,
Marco Cavarzere focuses on the cultural debates taking place in the
Italian states from 1748 until 1796. During this period,
governments tried to establish regional "national cultures" through
erudite scholarship, with the intent of creating new administrative
and political centralization within individual Italian states.
Meanwhile, other sectors of local societies used the tools of
antiquarianism in order to offer a counter-narrative on these
political reforms. Ultimately, this book proposes a localized way
of reading antiquarian texts. Far from presenting timeless
knowledge, erudition in fact gave voice to specific tensions which
were linked to restricted political arenas and regional public
opinion.
1930s Europe - as the Roaring Twenties wind down and the world
rumbles towards war, the great minds of the time have other
concerns. Jean-Paul Sartre waits anxiously in a Parisian cafe for
his first date with no-show Simone de Beauvoir. Marlene Dietrich
slips from her loveless marriage into the dive bars of Berlin.
Father and son Thomas and Klaus Mann clash over each other's
homosexuality. And Vladimir Nabokov lovingly places a fresh-caught
butterfly at the end of Vera's bed. Little do they all know, the
book burning will soon begin. Love in a Time of Hate skilfully
interweaves some of the greatest love stories of the 1930s with the
darkening backdrop of fascism in Europe, in an irresistible journey
into the past that brings history and its actors to vivid life.
From the time Catterina Vizzani, a young Roman woman, began wooing
the woman she was attracted to, she did so dressed as a man.
Fleeing Rome to avoid a potential trial for sexual misdeeds, she
became Giovanni Bordoni, transitioning and becoming a male in
spirit, deed, and body, through what was the most complete physical
change possible in the eighteenth century. This volume features
Giovanni Bianchi's 1744 Italian account of Vizzani/Bordoni,
published for the first time together with a modern English
translation, making available to an English-speaking audience the
objective, scientific exploration of gender conducted by Bianchi.
John Cleland's well-known, albeit fanciful, 1751 version of the
story has also been reproduced here, shedding light on the
divergent sexual politics driving Bianchi's Italian original and
Cleland's greatly embellished English translation. Through a close
examination of Bianchi's work as anatomical practitioner and
scholar, Clorinda Donato traces the development of his advocacy for
tolerance of all sexual orientations. Several chapters address the
medical and philosophical inquiry into sexual preference,
reproduction, sexual identity, and gender fluidity which
Enlightenment anatomists from Holland to Italy engaged with in
their research concerning the relationship between the mind and the
reproductive organs. Meanwhile, it is the social implications of
gender ambiguity which may be analysed in Cleland's condemnation of
women who "pass" as men. Drawing on the biographies produced by
Bianchi and Cleland, the volume reflects on the motivation of each
author to tell the story of Vizzani/Bordoni either as a narration
of empowerment or a cautionary tale within the European context of
evolving sexual opinions, some based on scientific research, others
based on social practice and cultural norms.
Holocaust survivor Eddie Jaku made a vow to smile every day and
believed he was the 'happiest man on earth'. In his inspirational
memoir, he paid tribute to those who were lost by telling his story
and sharing his wisdom. 'Eddie looked evil in the eye and met it
with joy and kindness . . . [his] philosophy is life-affirming' -
Daily Express Life can be beautiful if you make it beautiful. It is
up to you. Eddie Jaku always considered himself a German first, a
Jew second. He was proud of his country. But all of that changed in
November 1938, when he was beaten, arrested and taken to a
concentration camp. Over the next seven years, Eddie faced
unimaginable horrors every day, first in Buchenwald, then in
Auschwitz, then on a Nazi death march. He lost family, friends, his
country. The Happiest Man on Earth is a powerful, heartbreaking and
ultimately hopeful memoir of how happiness can be found even in the
darkest of times. 'Australia's answer to Captain Tom . . . a memoir
that extols the power of hope, love and mutual support' - The Times
Was the outcome of the First World War on a knife edge? In this
major new account of German wartime politics and strategy Holger
Afflerbach argues that the outcome of the war was actually in the
balance until relatively late in the war. Using new evidence from
diaries, letters and memoirs, he fundamentally revises our
understanding of German strategy from the decision to go to war and
the failure of the western offensive to the radicalisation of
Germany's war effort under Hindenburg and Ludendorff and the
ultimate collapse of the Central Powers. He uncovers the struggles
in wartime Germany between supporters of peace and hardliners who
wanted to fight to the finish. He suggests that Germany was not
nearly as committed to all-out conquest as previous accounts argue.
Numerous German peace advances could have offered the opportunity
to end the war before it dragged Europe into the abyss.
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