Books published by Berghahn Books

German Jews faced harsh dilemmas in their responses to Nazi persecution, partly a result of Nazi cruelty and brutality but also a result of an understanding of their history and rightful place in Germany. T

Longstanding and resilient local ideas of property and practices of inheritance control the destinies of those living in Bearn, a region of south-west France in the foothills of the French Pyrenees. Based on extensive fieldwork and archival research that combines ethnography and intellectual history...

It is commonly acknowledged that anthropologists use personal experiences to inform their writing. However, it is often assumed that only fieldwork experiences are relevant, and that the personal appears only in the form of self-reflexivity. This book takes a step forward from anthropology at home and auto-ethnography.

The Sahrawi and Afghan refugee youth in the Middle East have been stereotyped regionally and internationally: some have been objectified as passive victims; others have become the beneficiaries of numerous humanitarian aid packages which presume the primacy of the Western model of child development.

An examination of the role of history and memory is vital in order to better understand why the grand design of a United Europe-with a common foreign policy and market yet enough diversity to allow for cultural and social differences-was overwhelmingly turned down by its citizens.

By linking the experiences of immigrant families with the increased reliance on cheap and flexible workers for care and domestic work in Southern Europe, this study documents the lived experiences of neglected actors of globalization - migrant women - as well as the transformations of Western families more generally. However, while describing in detail the structural and cultural contexts within which these women have to operate, the book questions dominant paradigms about women as passive victims of patriarchal structures and brings out instead their agency and the creative ways in which they take control of their lives in often difficult circumstances. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork and interviews, the author offers a valuable dual comparison between two Southern European countries on the one hand and between two migrant groups, one Christian and one Muslim, on the other, thus bringing to light unique detailed data on migration decision-making, settlement and on the multiple ways in which different women cope with the consequences of their transnational lives.

The study of European wild food plants and herbal medicines is an old discipline that has been invigorated by a new generation of researchers pursuing ethnobotanical studies in fresh contexts. Modern botanical and medical science itself was built on studies of Medieval Europeans' use of food plants and medicinal herbs.

"e;Only unity saves the Serbs"e; is the famous call for unity in the Serb nationalist doctrine. But even though this doctrine was ideologically adhered to by most of the Serb leaders in Croatia and Bosnia, disunity characterized Serb politics during the Yugoslav disintegration and war. Nationalism was contested and nationalist claims to homogeneity did not reflect the reality of Serb politics. This book provides a comprehensive analysis of Serb politics and challenges widespread assumptions regarding the Yugoslav conflict and war. It finds that although Slobodan Milosevic played a highly significant role, he was not always able to control the local Serb leaders. Moreover, it adds to the emerging evidence of the lack of importance of popular attitudes; hardline dominance was generally based on the control of economic and coercive resources rather than on elites successfully "e;playing the ethnic card."e; It moves beyond an assumption of automatic ethnic outbidding and thus contributes toward a better understanding of intra-ethnic rivalry in other cases such as Israel/Palestine, Northern Ireland, Nagorno-Karabakh and Rwanda.

Since 1995 there has been a widespread return of commitment to French cinema taking it to a level unmatched since the heady days following 1968. But this new wave of political film is very different and urgently calls out for an analysis that will account for its development, its formal characteristics and its originality. This is what this book provides. It engages with leading directors such as Cantet, Tavernier, Dumont, Kassovitz, Zonca and Gudiguian, takes in a range of less well known but important figures and strays across the Belgian border to engage with the seminal work of the Dardenne brothers. It shows how the works discussed are helping to reinvent political cinema by finding stylistic and narrative strategies adequate to the contemporary context.

In this volume, leading chroniclers of war provide thoughtful and powerful essays that reflect on their ethnographic work at the frontlines. The contributors recount not only what they have seen and heard in war zones but also what is being read, studied, analyzed and remembered in a wide variety of locations.

The collapse of communism and the process of state building that ensued in the 1990s have highlighted the existence of significant minorities in many European states, particularly in Central Europe. In this context, the growing plight of Europe's biggest minority, the Roma (Gypsies), has been particularly salient. Traditionally dispersed, possessing few resources and devoid of a common "e;kin state"e; to protect their interests, the Roma have often suffered from widespread exclusion and institutionalized discrimination. Politically underrepresented and lacking popular support amongst the wider populations of their host countries, the Roma have consequently become one of Europe's greatest "e;losers"e; in the transition towards democracy. Against this background, the author examines the recent attempts of the Roma in Central Europe and their supporters to form a political movement and to influence domestic and international politics. On the basis of first-hand observation and interviews with activists and politicians in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia, he analyzes connections between the evolving state policies towards the Roma and the recent history of Romani mobilization. In order to reach a better understanding of the movement's dynamics at work, the author explores a number of theories commonly applied to the study of social movements and collective action.

The demise of the New German Cinema and the return of popular cinema since the 1990s have led to a renewed interest in the postwar years and the complicated relationship between East and West German cinema in particular. A survey of the 1950s, as offered here for the first time, is therefore long overdue.

Anthropology has long shied away from examining how human beings may lead happy and fulfilling lives. This book, however, shows that the ethnographic examination of well-being-defined as the optimal state for an individual, a community, and a societyA"-and the comparison of well-being within and across societies is a new and important area...

Recent years have witnessed a significant growth of interest in the consequences of political violence and displacement for the young. However, when speaking of childrenA" commentators have often taken the situation of those in early and middle childhood as representative of all young people under eighteen years of age.

Explores the structures and aesthetic possibilities of music, dance and dramatic representation in ritual and theatrical situations in a diversity of ethnographic contexts in Europe, Americas, Africa and Asia. This book aims to explore the way artistic and aesthetic practices in performance produce and structure experience.

During the Cold War, Britain had an astonishing number of contacts and connections with one of the Soviet Bloc's most hard-line regimes: the German Democratic Republic. The left wing of the British Labour Party and the Trade Unions often had closer ties with communist East Germany than the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). There were strong connections between the East German and British churches, women's movements, and peace movements; influential conservative politicians and the Communist leadership in the GDR had working relationships; and lucrative contracts existed between business leaders in Britain and their counterparts in East Germany. Based on their extensive knowledge of the documentary sources, the authors provide the first comprehensive study of Anglo-East German relations in this surprisingly under-researched field. They examine the complex motivations underlying different political groups' engagement with the GDR, and offer new and interesting insights into British political culture during the Cold War.

The WW I has been described as the primordial catastrophe of the twentieth century. Arguably, Italian Fascism, German National Socialism and Soviet Leninism and Stalinism would not have emerged without the cultural and political shock of WW I. This volume focusses on the connection between the WW I and the short- and long-term causes of WW I.

Race, ethnicity and nation are all intimately linked to family and kinship, yet these links deserve closer attention than they usually get in social science, above all when family and kinship are changing rapidly in the context of genomic and biotechnological revolutions.

Drawing on ethnographic inquiry and the anthropological literature on doubt and atheism, this volume explores people's reluctance to pursue religion.

Providing nuanced accounts of how the social identities of men and women, the context of displacement and the experience or manifestation of violence interact, this collection offers conceptual analyses and in-depth case studies to illustrate how gender relations are affected by displacement, encampment and return.

This in-depth description of life in a nursing/care home, told in a year of daily conversations with patients and staff, highlights the daily care of frail or ill residents of extreme old age, emphasising interaction with care assistants and the different behaviours of men and women.

This book provides a fascinating survey of the ways in which Jewish communities in Europe, North America, and the Middle East participated in and were changed by the Great War during and after the conflict.

First published in 2007, The Nanking Atrocity remains an essential resource for understanding the massacre. This second edition includes an extensive new introduction reflecting on the historiographical developments of the last decade, making this even more relevant as we approach the 80th anniversary of the Nanking massacre.

Combining accessible prose with scholarly rigor, The Participants presents fascinating profiles of the all-too-human men who implemented some of the most inhuman acts in modern history.

Marilyn Strathern is among the most creative and celebrated contemporary anthropologists, and her work draws interest from across the humanities and social sciences.

This volume explores what draws students to study or volunteer abroad. In doing so, the book sheds light on how affect is managed by educators and mobilized by students and volunteers themselves, and how these structures of feeling related to broader social and economic forces.

Heritage studies necessarily must deal with strong emotions and political commitments. In this, it poses particular challenges for teachers and their students. Guided by a shared focus on these "sensitive pasts," the contributors to this volume draw on new theoretical and empirical research to provide valuable insights into heritage pedagogy.

In 1944, members of the Sonderkommando-the "e;special squads,"e; composed almost exclusively of Jewish prisoners, who ensured the smooth operation of the gas chambers and had firsthand knowledge of the extermination process-buried on the grounds of Auschwitz-Birkenau a series of remarkable eyewitness accounts of Nazi genocide. This careful and penetrating study examines anew these "e;Scrolls of Auschwitz,"e; which were gradually recovered, in damaged and fragmentary form, in the years following the camp's liberation. It painstakingly reconstructs their historical context and textual content, revealing complex literary works that resist narrow moral judgment and engage difficult questions about the limits of testimony.

German attitudes toward migrants have been profoundly shaped by the legacies of the Second World War. This volume explores the history of migration and diversity in Germany from 1945 onward.

After World War I, over one million Ottoman Greeks were expelled from Turkey, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths. This study analyzes the fight for international recognition of the Greek genocide narrative, showing how its memory developed as a cultural trauma with both nationalist and cosmopolitan dimensions.