Books published by Berghahn Books, Incorporated

With the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, four decades of separation seemed to have been brought to an end. In the literary arena as in many others, this seemed to be the surprising but ultimately logical end to the situation in which, after the extreme separation of the two Germanies' literatures during most of the period up to 1980...

The dialogue between form and message is intrinsic to the novel as genre. Yet the strength of that discourse has been shaken in the twentieth century by an increasing doubt about affirmations of any kind and a growing awareness of the relativity of knowledge and perception.

With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the shifting of American foreign policy away from "old" Europe, long-established patterns of interaction between Germany and the US have come under review. This text seeks to acknowledge the importance of those patterns for the study of German culture and history on both sides of the Atlantic.

Can a novel cause riots, start a war, free serfs or slaves, break up marriages, drive readers to suicide, close factories, bring about law change, swing an election, or serve as a weapon in a national or international struggle?

A timely book: as Israelis and Arabs are moving towards a settlement, this study offers a valuable historical dimension, from the Jewish point of view, to the main issue involved, i.e., the idea of peace. The authors maintain that peace has always played an important role in Jewish thought, that in fact Judaism as a religion is characterized by the striving for peace. They reach this conclusion after having examined a variety of sources, ranging from the biblical texts of Old Israel to the Talmudic tradition and Jewish Philosophy of Religion up until the twentieth century.

Andrzej Wajda is considered one of Poland's - many would say the world's - greatest film directors. During the thirty-five years of his activity in film, theatre or television, his work, whether strong or weak, always arouses strong emotions and provokes intense debates in the media.

This book captures the methodological and thematic diversity and richness of current work on the history of the German working class and the political movements that emerged from it.

France experienced four major conflicts in the fifty years between 1914 and 1964: two world wars, and the wars in Indochina and Algeria. In each the role of myth was intricately bound up with memory, hope, belief, and ideas of nation. This is the first book to explore how individual myths were created, sustained, and used for purposes of propaganda

It is hard to imagine nowadays that, for many years, France and Germany considered each other as "arch enemies." And yet, for well over a century, these two countries waged verbal and ultimately violent wars against each other.

The unprecedented scope and intensity of the First World War has prompted an enormous body of retrospective scholarship. However, efforts to provide a coherent synthesis about the war's impact and significance have remained circumscribed, tending to focus either on the operational outlines of military strategy and tactics or on the cultural legacy.

A key theme in the anthropology of beliefs is the relationship between socio-economic change and changes in the belief system. It has been widely argued that rapid economic change, particularly the introduction of capitalism, leads to an increase in beliefs in, and representations of, evil and the devil.

This is the first of two volumes of edited sermons spanning the greater part of the second half of the twentieth century, and the first major collection of sermons from a Liberal Jewish point ofview produced in Britain since Claude G. Montefiore's Truth in Religion of 1906.

This collection of articles covers a crucial period of Spain's history, from the rise of Franco to the crucial Stabilization Plan of 1959. Separated into four chronologically divided sections, it focuses largely on the international reactions to and the involvement of other powers in the Spanish Civil War...

Points to the important role of women as key characters in Polish films, such as the enduring female figure in Polish culture, the "Polish Mother," female characters in socialist realistic cinema, women depicted in the films of the Polish School, solidarity heroines, and women in the films from the postcommunist period.

This study not only makes farm women's subordination explicit, but in discerning the sources and force of their influence within and outside the farm family, it offers a challenge to existing explanations of the evolution of Irish rural social structures.

Violent ethno-nationalist conflicts continue to mar the history of the twentieth century; yet no satisfactory answer to the question of why humans are susceptible to indoctrination by ideologies that lead to inter-group hostility has so far been found.

his volume deals in depth with the life of the Sinti and Roma in Germany and their representation in German literature, giving the background to the maltreatment, underlining the fact that the persecution of Gypsies during the Nazi period, which until the 1980s has been totally marginalized by historians, did not cease in 1945.

Infrastructure development projects are set to continue into the next century as developing country governments seek to manage population growth, urbanization and industrialization. The contributions in this volume raise many questions about 'development' and 'progress' in the late twentieth century.

In light of growing scepticism at the accepted wisdom that National Socialism and the German working class had nothing but immediate and enduring hostility for each other before World War II, nine essays enumerate and define the Nazi electorate and membership as precisely as records allow, and exami

This collection of essays by leading western and Russian specialists contains new insights and updates previous research into the role of women in Russian culture in the last two centuries and contributes to two exciting and growing research areas: the feminist critique of work by Russian male authors and the study of Russian women writers.

A literary and cultural study combining social and political analysis along with a close reading of Turkish-born writer Emine Sevgi +zdamar in order to present the current situation of the Turkish minority living in modern Germany.

The line between what is regarded by people as "traditional" and "modern" is constantly being altered by new configurations of power. These essays examine the ways in which such changes are both communicated and created through cultural performances in diverse ethnographic settings. Examples are drawn from a wide range of forms and expressions...

The construction of masculinity is becoming a field of growing interest because it is opening up new and fascinating perspectives, thus adding a further dimension to Gender Studies. However, so far the analysis has focused mostly on homosexuality. By contrast, the author examines social processes and relations that constitute hegemonic masculinity.

When studying the origins of the First World War, scholars have relied heavily on the series of key diplomatic documents published by the governments of both the defeated and the victorious powers in the 1920s and 1930s.

Eight internationally-known social historians from Europe and Israel offer an overview of some key themes in European history during the last two centuries. While dealing with the great changes of this period, the authors reveal the commonalities that link European societies together but also important differences at a national level.

A study of race and racism in France, these 11 articles present research on the tension between a republican tradition in France that has long denied the legitimacy of acknowledging racial difference and a lived reality in which racial prejudice shaped popular views about foreigners, Jews, immigrants, and colonial people.

Born in the first year of the 20th century, it is fitting that Margaret Mead should have been one of the first anthropologists to use anthropological analysis to study the future course of human civilization. This volume collects her writings on the future of humanity and how humans can shape that future through purposeful action.