Leading sexuality scholars explore queer lives and cultures in the first full post-war decade through an array of sources and a range of perspectives. Drawing out the particularities of queer cultures from the Finland and New Zealand to the UK and the USA, this collection rethinks preconceptions of the 1950s and pinpoints some of its legacies.

The strife for social improvement that arose in the decades around the turn of the 20th century raised the issue of social conformity in new ways: how were citizens who did not adhere to the rules to be dealt with? This edited collection opens new perspectives on the history of the emerging welfare state by focusing on its margins.

The poet Abraham Shlonsky (1900-1973) can be regarded as the main architect of Jewish Modernism and Hebrew secular culture. In his crucial contribution, Ari Ofengenden disentangles Shlonsky's work from Zionist readings and shows how his poetics redeem experiences of radical political displacement, exile and alienation through the use of a precise, chiseled yet playfully enigmatic style. Writing on immigrants, refugees and urban outcasts following the traumatic events of the First World War and the Civil War in Russia, his poetry constitutes a fusion of Modernist European poetry with biblical and rabbinic sources with the influences of Georg Trakl and Rimbaud. The book situates Shlonsky's poetry in the context of his "rebellion" against the romantic poetry of C.N. Bialik and as an active participant in the European styles of Symbolism and Expressionism. The book is indispensable for understanding Modern Hebrew and Jewish culture, and more generally as an exemplar of today's more prevalent hybridizations of tradition and modernity.

Presenting a communicational perspective on the British empire in India during the 20th century, the book seeks to examine how, and explain why, British proconsuls, civil servants and even the monarch George V, as well as Indian nationalists, interacted with the media, primarily British and American, and with what consequences.

This fascinating study examines wartime Chinese-Soviet relations from a Moscow-based, Chinese perspective at the ambassadorial level. The book includes descriptions of everyday life in Moscow, of embassy business, of contemporary events and diplomacy, of intelligence operations, of meetings with Stalin, and of communications to and from Chongqing.

Women's lives changed more in the twentieth century than in any previous century. It was a period of transformation, not only of the political realm, but also of the household, family and workplace. Innovations in military technology, the mass media, manufacturing, medicine, travel and communications shaped the lives of women. Ranging widely over the whole of Europe and the entirety of the long twentieth century, this fascinating account is the first comprehensive survey of women in twentieth-century Europe.

"Politics and Religion in Modern Japan" addresses crucial religious, socio-political and cultural issues raised by the troubled relationship between religion and the Japanese state from the mid-nineteenth century until the present day. It analyzes political dynamics of both of the two major Japanese religious traditions: the 'red sun' of national Shinto as well as the 'white lotus' of Buddhism. From a richly diverse range of disciplinary perspectives, the authors illuminate the overall history of modern Japanese political religion, while also focusing in depth on certain key moments and issues: the Meiji Restoration, the fascist 1930s, the postwar age of new religions, the Yasukuni Shrine controversy, and two major incidents of religiopolitical violence in late twentieth century Japan. The work will appeal to students and scholars of Japanese politics, religion, history, literature, and culture, as well as to anyone interested in the currently pressing topic of the relation between politics and religion in the modern world.

On 30 January 1933, Alfred Hugenberg's conservative German National People's Party (DNVP) formed a coalition government with the Nazi Party, thus enabling Hitler to accede to the chancellorship. This book analyzes in detail the complicated relationship between Conservatives and Nazis and offers a re-interpretation of the Nazi seizure of power - the decisive months between 30 January and 14 July 1933. The Machtergreifung is characterized here as a period of all-pervasive violence and lawlessness with incessant conflicts between Nazis and German Nationals and Nazi attacks on the conservative Burgertum, a far cry from the traditional depiction of the takeover as a relatively bloodless, virtually sterile assumption of power by one vast impersonal apparatus wresting control from another. The author scrutinizes the revolutionary character of the Nazi seizure of power, the Nazis' attacks on the conservative Burgertum and its values, and National Socialism's co-optation of conservative symbols of state power to serve radically new goals, while addressing the issue of why the DNVP was complicit in this and paradoxically participated in eroding the foundations of its very own principles and bases of support.

What was German modernity? What did the years between 1880 and 1930 mean for Germany's navigation through a period of global capitalism, imperial expansion, and technological transformation? German Modernities From Wilhelm to Weimar brings together leading historians of the Imperial and Weimar periods from across North America to readdress the question of German modernities. Acutely attentive to Germany's eventual turn towards National Socialism and the related historiographical arguments about 'modernity', this volume explores the variety of social, intellectual, political, and imperial projects pursued by those living in Germany in the Wilhelmine and Weimar years who were yet uncertain about what they were creating and which future would come. It includes varied case studies, based on cutting-edge research, which rethink the relationship of the early 20th century to the rise of Nazism and the Third Reich. A range of political, social and cultural issues, including citizenship, welfare, empire, aesthetics and sexuality, as well as the very nature of German modernity, are analyzed and placed in a global context. German Modernities From Wilhelm to Weimar is a book of vital significance to all students of modern German history seeking to further understand the complex period from 1880 to 1930.

This book explores the Jewish Left's innovative strategies in maintaining newspapers, radio stations, and educational activities during a moment of crisis in global democracy. In the wake of the First World War, as immigrant workers and radical organizations came under attack, leaders within largely Jewish unions and political parties determined to keep their tradition of social unionism alive. By adapting to an emerging media environment dependent on advertising, turn-of-the-century Yiddish socialism morphed into a new political identity compatible with American liberalism and an expanding consumer society. Through this process, the Jewish working class secured a place within the New Deal coalition they helped to produce. Using a wide array of archival sources, Brian Dolber demonstrates the importance of cultural activity in movement politics, and the need for thoughtful debate about how to structure alternative media in moments of political, economic, and technological change.

In the second half of the nineteenth century a new kind of social and cultural actor came to the fore: the expert. During this period complex processes of modernization, industrialization, urbanization, and nation-building gained pace, particularly in Western Europe and North America. These processes created new forms of specialized expertise that grew in demand and became indispensible in fields like sanitation, incarceration, urban planning, and education. Often the expertise needed stemmed from problems at a local or regional level, but many transcended nation-state borders. Experts helped shape a new transnational sphere by creating communities that crossed borders and languages, sharing knowledge and resources through those new communities, and by participating in special events such as congresses and world fairs.

The relationship between the Russian Federation and the 14 non-Russian successor states is unequal, with Russia the dominant power. This power imbalance is a hold-over from the Soviet era in which the RSFSR was "first among equals." Empires, like the Soviet one, are specific types of political systems that differed from modern states. The centralized, multi-ethnic and non-democratic character of empires explains the continued dominance of the Russian Federation. It also explains the absence of alternative economic arrangements and political contacts between the former republics. The Soviet system was structured so as to establish Russian control over non-Russian republics. The political structure was centralized so that all decisions, including investment, production, and distribution decisions were made in Moscow. Economic planning dictated a complex network of production and distribution that rendered the former republics dependent on Russia in a variety of ways. Soviet patterns of government administration and economic management are still evident in all the former republics. Continued dependency on Russia has compromised the state-building efforts of the former republics. Political rhetoric trumpeting new foreign investment, the expansion of diplomatic relations, the signing of trade agreements, and the imminent entrance into international organizations masks the fact that none of these new contacts have been able to replace the old Soviet production and distribution networks. Scholars and students involved with comparative politics and Russian (post-Communist) Studies will find the work of particular value.

Abortion in the Weimar Republic is a compelling subject since it provoked public debates and campaigns of an intensity rarely matched elsewhere. It proved so explosive because populationist, ecclesiastical and political concerns were heightened by cultural anxieties of a modernity in crisis. Based on an exceptionally rich source material (e.g., criminal court cases, doctors' case books, personal diaries, feature films, plays and literary works), this study explores different attitudes and experiences of those women who sought to terminate an unwanted pregnancy and those who helped or hindered them. It analyzes the dichotomy between medical theory and practice, and questions common assumptions, i.e. that abortion was "a necessary evil," which needed strict regulation and medical control; or that all back-street abortions were dangerous and bad. Above all, the book reveals women's own voices, frequently contradictory and ambiguous: having internalized medical ideas they often also adhered to older notions of reproduction which opposed scientific approaches.

The Emancipation led Italian Jews to redefine themselves in fundamental ways, beginning a debate about integration and assimilation that continued until the Racial Legislation Laws of 1938. This groundbreaking study examines the numerous youth movements, newspapers, and cultural societies that attempted to revitalize Italian Judaism and define the "essence" of Jewish identity during this period. Throughout, author Cristina M. Bettin demonstrates how Jews integrated rather than assimilated, which became a unique and defining feature of Italian Judaism.

Of all victims of Nazi persecution, German Jews had to suffer the Nazi yoke for the longest time. Throughout the Third Reich, they were exposed to anti-Jewish propaganda, discrimination, anti-Semitic laws and increasingly to outrages and offences by non-Jewish Germans. While the International Military Tribunal and the subsequent American Military Tribunals at Nuremberg dealt with a variety of Nazi crimes according to international law, these courts did not consider themselves cognizant in adjudicating wrongdoings against German citizens and those who lost German citizenship based on the so-called "Nuremberg laws," such as Germany's Jews. Until recently, scholarship failed to explore this task of the German judiciary in more detail. Edith Raim fills this gap by showing the extent of the crimes committed against Jews beyond the traditionally known facts and by elucidating how the West German administration of justice was reconstructed under Allied supervision.

Paul J. Bailey provides the first analytical study in English of Chinese women's experiences during China's turbulent twentieth century. Incorporating the very latest specialized research, and drawing upon Chinese cinema and autobiographical memoirs, this fascinating narrative account: - Explores the impact of political, social and cultural change on women's lives, and how Chinese women responded to such developments - Charts the evolution of gender discourses during this period - Illuminates both change and continuity in gender discourse and practice Approachable and authoritative, this is an essential overview for students, teachers and scholars of gender history, and anyone with an interest in modern Chinese history.

"This narrative of the rise and repeated adaptation of the German environmental movement to a variety of social and political contexts is a fascinating one...Ultimately, Markham's sociological analysis of German nature protection organizations proves readable and engaging. He makes significant efforts to write a broadly accessible work. Discussions of sociological theory are limited to a methodological chapter and part of the conclusion; otherwise, his prose is clear and highly organized. This book therefore would make an excellent introduction to the history of German environmentalism." . H-German ..".a welcome addition to the topic of German environmentalism ... that]is well organized... and] succeeds, in part, because of its theoretical perspective... It] also succeeds because of meticulous research." . Canadian Journal of History/Annales canadiennes d'histoire ..".a profound, comprehensive study... which is singular in its kind and is sure to become a standard reference (Standardwerk) on this subject. In many research stays in Germany, Markham acquired a profound knowledge of the history and the present characteristics of German environmental organizations, of their changing role in politics, and the strategic dilemmas they face." . Nature + Culture "The main contribution of this book lies in its thorough and informative account of the historical development of German environmentalism...an impressive work that will be of interest to researchers well beyond the boundaries of environmental sociology and politics, or European (German) studies." . American Journal of Sociology ..".a well-researched and highly accessible historical-sociological investigation of German environmental organizations in the twentieth century as well as a critical assessment of the strategic dilemmas and decisions that these groups faced as they entered the twenty-first...an excellent contribution to a growing historical literatue dedicated to the 'greening' of German history." . The American Historical Review "William T. Markham... has written a very useful historical and sociological overview of several major twentieth century German environmental organizations...augmented by a broad historical overview of twentieth century German environmentalism and a lucid, historian friendly discussion of the major theories that sociologists and political scientists have used in analyzing social movements...a fine book that should be essential reading for anyone interested in environmental organizations and how to go about studying them." . History: Books in Review German environmental organizations have doggedly pursued environmental protection through difficult times: hyperinflation and war, National Socialist rule, postwar devastation, state socialism in the GDR, and confrontation with the authorities during the 1970s and 1980s. The author recounts the fascinating and sometimes dramatic story of these organizations from their origins at the end of the nineteenth century to the present, not only describing how they reacted to powerful social movements, including the homeland protection and socialist movements in the early years of the twentieth century, the Nazi movement, and the anti-nuclear and new social movements of the 1970s and 1980s, but also examining strategies for survival in periods like the current one, when environmental concerns are not at the top of the national agenda. Previous analyses of environmental organizations have almost invariably viewed them as parts of larger social structures, that is, as components of social movements, as interest groups within a political system, or as contributors to civil society. This book, by contrast, starts from the premise that through the use of theories developed specifically to analyze the behavior of organizations and NGOs we can gain additional insight into why environmental organizations behave as they do."

This book takes the Dust Bowl story beyond Depression America to describe the 'dust bowl' concept as a transnational phenomenon, where during World War Two, US and Australian national mythologies converged. Dust Bowl begins with Depression America, the New Deal and the US Dust Bowl where massive dust storms darkened the skies of the Great Plains and triggered a major national and international media event and generated imagery describing a failed yeoman dream, Dust Bowl refugees, and the coming of a new American Desert. Dust Bowl traces the evolution of this imagery to Australia, World War Two and New Deal-inspired stories of conservation-mindedness, soil erosion and enemies, sheep-farmers and traitors, creeping deserts and human extinction, super-human housewives and natural disaster and finally, grand visions of a nation-building post-war scheme for Australia's iconic Snowy River-that vision became the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Scheme.

This is the most comprehensive account to date of literary politics in Nazi Germany and of the institutions, organizations and people who controlled German literature during the Third Reich. Barbian details a media dictatorship-involving the persecution and control of writers, publishers and libraries, but also voluntary assimilation and pre-emptive self-censorship-that began almost immediately under the National Socialists, leading to authors' forced declarations of loyalty, literary propaganda, censorship, and book burnings. Special attention is given to Nazi regulation of the publishing industry and command over all forms of publication and dissemination, from the most presitigious publishing houses to the smallest municipal and school libraries. Barbian also shows that, although the Nazis censored books not in line with Party aims, many publishers and writers took advantage of loopholes in their system of control. Supporting his work with exhaustive research of original sources, Barbian describes a society in which everybody who was not openly opposed to it, participated in the system, whether as a writer, an editor, or even as an ordinary visitor to a library.

In this pioneering volume, a group of "third generation" scholars subject the contested ligature between Finland and the Holocaust to critique. Finland's Holocaust: Silences of History traces the implications of antisemitism in Finland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, through Finland's alliance with the Third Reich during much of World War II, to the complex negotiation with its wartime past. Taking up a range of issues - from cultural history, folklore, the arts, and sports, to the interpretation of military and national history - this collection examines how modern Finnish memory and the writing of history have both engaged and evaded the figure of the Holocaust. As the first English-language introduction to the changing position of Finland in contemporary international Holocaust historiography, Finland's Holocaust is essential reading for any student of antisemitism and the Holocaust, providing a critical perspective on the role of political and cultural historiography in modern Finland.

This book is an important contribution to the history of religion in twentieth century Britain which focuses upon the importance of central religious narratives. These narratives are demonstrated to have changed significantly over time but also to have been invested with importance and meaning by religious individuals and organisations, as well as by secular ones. The book investigates narratives of pilgrimage and the good Samaritan, of conversion, of the idea of the 'just' and 'unjust' war, of the creation of post First World War Remembrance, of sickness and dying and of specific 'moments' and their power to make religion strong again at specific historical junctures. The last narrative investigated is narrative of religious decline itself and how this convinced the Anglican Church in England to seriously consider the prospect of its own demise. The strength and importance of these different emphases does not follow a pattern of religious decline or of secular triumph as these are regularly recast and renewed. As such this offers a qualification to conventional versions of the secularization thesis as well as suggesting a new paradigm for thinking about and writing religious history in Britain.

An account of the 1929 uprising in Kabul. During the occupation Fayz Muhammad, a Kabul resident and historian, kept a detailed journal, which forms the basis of this book. It covers the occupiers' extortion, confiscation, and the resulting hardships, as well as the actions of those who resisted.

This book is a must-read for anyone studying and researching the rise and fall of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy and McCarthyism in American political life. Intolerance in America that targets alleged internal subversives controlled by external agents has a storied history that stretches hundreds of years. While the post-World War II "Red Scare" and the emergence of McCarthyism during the 1950s is the era commonly associated with American anticommunism, there was also a "First Red Scare" that occurred in 1919-1920. In both time periods, many Americans feared the radicalism of the left, and some of the most outspoken-like McCarthy-used slander to denounce their political enemies. The result was an atmosphere in which individual rights and liberties were at risk and hysteria prevailed. McCarthyism and the Red Scare: A Reference Guide tracks the rise and fall of Senator Joe McCarthy and the broad pursuit of domestic "Red" subversives in the post-World War II years, and focuses on how American society responded to real and perceived threats from the left during the first decade of the Cold War. Provides an overview of McCarthyism and the postwar Red Scare, relating these mindsets to other waves of domestic persecution Includes 12 relevant historic documents such as the Truman Loyalty Oaths; a transcript of McCarthy's speech in Wheeling, West Virginia; McCarthy's attacks on Acheson and Marshall; Margaret Chase Smith's Statement on Conscience; and the Senate's censure of McCarthy Provides information on the First Red Scare and the emergence of the American fear of the Left and the potential for a revolution Includes 11 short biographies of primary individuals associated with McCarthyism and the Red Scare Presents a chronology of events that threatened or weakened individual rights throughout the 20th century, with a specific focus on the Red Scare periods of 1919-21 and 1945-57 An annotated bibliography includes primary and secondary sources representing the most significant contemporary and scholarly works on the topic