{"title":"The Gespenst of Postcolonial Theory","authors":"Anne Berg","doi":"10.1017/S0008938923000055","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008938923000055","url":null,"abstract":"“What is going on in Germany?” asked Natalie Zemon Davis after Munich suspended the acclaimed play Vögel (Birds) by Wajdi Mouawad in November 2022. Davis, a renowned historian, had been deeply involved in the play's conception and production only to see it pulled for alleged antisemitism and Holocaust relativization.1 This was not an isolated example.2","PeriodicalId":45053,"journal":{"name":"Central European History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46117109","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"人文科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Jewish Childhood in Kraków: A Microhistory of the Holocaust By Joanna Sliwa. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2021. Pp. 218. Paperback $29.29. ISBN: 978-1978822931.","authors":"Monika Rice","doi":"10.1017/S0008938923000286","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008938923000286","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45053,"journal":{"name":"Central European History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42192201","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"人文科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Bestsellers of the Third Reich: Readers, Writers, and the Politics of Literature By Christian Adam. Translated by Anne Stokes. New York: Berghahn Books, 2021. Pp. xii + 297. Cloth $135.00. ISBN: 978-1800730397.","authors":"N. Reagin","doi":"10.1017/S0008938923000274","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008938923000274","url":null,"abstract":"Munich than Vienna, was a prime target for this sanction, but the festival’s cosmopolitan audiences held up, and there was some recognition in Vienna that the festival was of sufficient national importance to merit support despite the straitened economic circumstances. Rehrl was eventually removed from his position only following the German annexation of Austria in 1938. Her survived the war, despite an indirect association with the 1944 bomb plot that landed him in Ravensbrück. He returned to Salzburg after the war, re-engaged with local politics despite his health problems, and died in 1947 leaving a tremendous legacy. This is a meticulously researched and comprehensive study of the Salzburg Festival’s origins and early development over a period of some twenty years between the wars. The history itself occupies some 400 pages and is followed by extensive appendices containing pictures and documents. It is one of the book’s strengths that the detailed account of plans and negotiations is interwoven with the turbulent political and economic history of Austria (and Europe) between the wars. Amidst all this, it sometimes seems that – despite his prominence in the title – Rehrl gets less of a look-in, and we get little sense of him as a man, still less as a politician. The main narrative ends with a testament to his commitment, under Gestapo interrogation, to Austria and to democracy. That commitment was presumably tested in 1933, when Rehrl responded to the government’s use of procedural chicanery to suppress parliament with a pious speech blaming opposition “obstruction,” a position echoed in the text by an explanation setting out – albeit in the subjunctive mood – the “difficult” choices facing the Austrian chancellor. We get little or no sense of Rehrl’s response to the violent coup d’état of the following February, and as party leader in Salzburg Rehrl remained an important figure in the dictatorship. Even so, Kriechbaumer’s study of the festival’s early years is, in many respects, a model of cultural history and deserves a wide readership.","PeriodicalId":45053,"journal":{"name":"Central European History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49666823","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"人文科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mussolini and the Eclipse of Italian Fascism: From Dictatorship to Populism By R. J. B. Bosworth. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2021. Pp. xiv + 338. Cloth $32.50. ISBN: 978-0300232721.","authors":"Nicolas G. Virtue","doi":"10.1017/S0008938923000377","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008938923000377","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45053,"journal":{"name":"Central European History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41549965","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"人文科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Die Theorie der Seuche. Krankheitskonzepte und Pestbewältigung im Mittelalter By Katharina Wolff. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2021. Pp. 445. Hardback $82.75. ISBN: 978-3515129695.","authors":"Lucy C. Barnhouse","doi":"10.1017/s0008938923000134","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0008938923000134","url":null,"abstract":"Katharina Wolff ’ s monograph is an ambitious one, studying both medieval theories of plague and how the study of such theories was intertwined with the work of historians of medicine at the time of the bacteriological revolution. Wolff examines not only how medieval European societies coped with infectious disease but also the sociocultural significance of the historiography of medieval epidemics. “ Sickness, ” Wolff argues, “ happens to individuals, diseases hap-pen to societies ” (18, 272). Linking the disparate elements of her study is the argument that epidemics are always defined by those observing them, whether those observers are medieval chroniclers, modern scholars of the humanities, or scientists in either period","PeriodicalId":45053,"journal":{"name":"Central European History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44916057","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"人文科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Two German Perspectives on a German Discussion","authors":"W. Gruner, S. Schüler-Springorum","doi":"10.1017/S0008938923000067","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008938923000067","url":null,"abstract":"This contribution results from a place of serious discomfort regarding recent public and academic discussions in Germany, where Holocaust memory and its political instrumentalization have seemed to produce a growing dogmatism, harming academic freedom. Because we both direct university research centers in Berlin and Los Angeles dedicated to the study of the Holocaust, we have decided to join forces and share our particular German perspectives on this debate. Our views are in part generational, in part personal.","PeriodicalId":45053,"journal":{"name":"Central European History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43794202","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"人文科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Politisierung der Alpen. Umweltbewegungen in der Ära der Europäischen Integration (1970-2000) By Romed Aschwanden. Vienna and Cologne: Böhlau, 2021. Pp. 347. Hardcover €60.00. ISBN: 978-3412521349.","authors":"M. Landry","doi":"10.1017/s0008938923000225","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0008938923000225","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45053,"journal":{"name":"Central European History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49140212","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"人文科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Allies and Rivals: German-American Exchange and the Rise of the Modern Research University By Emily J. Levine. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021. Pp. 392. Cloth $35.00. ISBN: 978-0226341811.","authors":"Sandra L. Singer","doi":"10.1017/s0008938923000328","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0008938923000328","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45053,"journal":{"name":"Central European History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42164865","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"人文科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Singing Like Germans: Black Musicians in the Land of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms By Kira Thurman. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2021. Pp. 368. Hardcover $32.95. ISBN: 978-1501759840.","authors":"Karen Painter","doi":"10.1017/S0008938923000262","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008938923000262","url":null,"abstract":"as the female sphere of domesticity” (246). I wondered, though, if and how telegraphy contributed to constructions of masculinity in communications. As Johnston notes, the history of telegraphy is “remarkably overlooked in the historiography of modern Germany” (2). This book goes a very long way to rectifying that lacuna. Hopefully, this book will receive the wide readership from historians of Germany, technology, and media that it deserves.","PeriodicalId":45053,"journal":{"name":"Central European History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46875956","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"人文科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Flaschenkinder. Säuglingsernährung und Familienbeziehungen in Deutschland und Schweden im 20. Jahrhundert By Verena Limper. Vienna and Cologne: Böhlau, 2021. Pp. 532. Hardcover €70.00. ISBN: 978-3412519759.","authors":"Friederike Kind-Kovács","doi":"10.1017/S0008938923000195","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008938923000195","url":null,"abstract":"Hayes was earning “outrageous sums of money” for his engagements (110)? How do we know that “applauding African American concert performers sometimes functioned as a symbolic gesture of protest against American racism” (122)? Scholars can disagree on how to interpret sources, but the material in Thurman’s book is always riveting. We learn that in 1909, “a stormy colonial debate reached parliament about a Black musician named Gustav Sabac el Cher” (91). In fact, the matter before the Reichstag was the downsizing of troops stationed in Cameroon, which provoked a lengthy speech from General Eduard von Liebert. Briefly lamenting the music budget (why did German battalions need a bass drum and why couldn’t musicians double as combat soldiers?), von Liebert mentioned a rumor that a Prussian cavalry regiment had a Black drummer and a Prussian infantry regiment had a Black “conductor or drum major.” There was, however, no debate: von Liebert (who later joined the Nazi Party) acknowledged that “race is a question normally avoided” and quickly returned to the subject of the military budget. Quibbling with details does not undermine the book’s forceful argument. For example, the sexist and racist term “pretty, exotic bird” is how one man, in 1975, recounted first seeing the Black woman who became his partner—it was not a trope in “West German magazine articles” (227)—but the fascination with sexuality and celebration of interracial unions are crucial to changes in the reception of Black musicians. The attentive reader will be surprised that musicians and institutions are reintroduced in subsequent chapters, but flawed copyediting in no way diminishes the significance of the book. Thurman’s courage to tell a different story, one suppressed for generations, will inspire musicologists and historians to listen more carefully to how race and gender were experienced in the exalted spaces of classical music.","PeriodicalId":45053,"journal":{"name":"Central European History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"56743062","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"人文科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}