New Books In European Studies

Alabama-Auburn. Maple Leafs-Canadiens. Boca Juniors-River Plate. Carlton-Collingwood.Fenerbahce-Galatasaray. Great rivalries are the catalysts of national sporting cultures. They are the high point of a season, fueling emotions as well as ticket sales and media hype. The most famous rivalries typically have bearing for league standings and championships. But many are also grounded in long-standing divisions between social classes or religious and ethnic communities. The case can be made that the most intense rivalry in all of sports is between Glasgow’s two football clubs: Celtic and Rangers. Known collectively as the “Old Firm,” the two clubs have dominated Scottish football for more than a century. The last time a team other than Celtic or Rangers won the Scottish league was 1985. But the rivalry is built on more than the competition for titles and trophies. Rangers were long associated with Scottish Protestantism, and the club refused for decades to sign a Catholic player. Celtic,

My grandfather joined up when the Second World War broke out, but he was soon returned to civvy street as he was much more valuable employing his mechanic’s skills to fight the Nazis from a factory in Newcastle. He ended up making the parts of the spot lights that were used to guide anti-aircraft batteries (and my grandmother made parachutes, just over the River Tyne in Gateshead). Although this was not half as exciting to find out about as a young boy as discovering that he was in fact a Commando or part of the Long Range Desert Group, what my grandfather was part of was vital to the defeat of Nazism. In his excellent book, Britain’s War Machine: Weapons, Resources and Experts in the Second World War (Oxford University Press, 2011), David Edgerton is all about this crucial non-military part of Britain’s war with Germany, and it sets about challenges perceptions almost from the front page. His argument is that Britain was actually far more able and well resourced than commonly thought. It en

This week we’re continuing our focus on the Second World War, as our guest author, Jorg Muth, chats about his recent book Command Culture: Officer Education in the U.S. Army and the German Armed Forces, 1901-1940, and the Consequences for World War II (University of North Texas Press, 2011). Muth’s book, which has recently been selected for the U.S. Army Chief of Staff’s Professional Reading List, is a provocative analytical comparison of the respective cultures of officership in the US Army and the German armed forces in the first half of the twentieth century. In setting up his comparison, Muth pulls few punches in his critique of the flaws resident in both institutions. Yet while the American army managed to overcome these flaws, Muth notes that the Wehrmacht ultimately fell victim to its own hubris and ossified culture inherent in its origins. He continues to offer valuable insights as to how these institutional problems and successes continue to shape the culture of officership in the U

Edith Piaf’s story is rife with drama. The daughter of an acrobat and a singer, she was the first French superstar and sang with wild abandon in a voice that rivaled Judy Garland’s. And yet, so often Piaf’s high-spirits are used against her and her life is made to fit the standard template of the tortured artist: early ambition, a meteoric rise to fame, a string of meaningless love affairs and substance abuse leading to an early death. In light of this tendency, Carolyn Burke‘s No Regrets: The Life of Edith Piaf (Knopf, 2011) serves as a much needed corrective, breathing life back into the chanteuse’s legacy. During her short life Piaf consistently demonstrated an extraordinary boldness- in her relationships, yes, but also in her singing, her spirituality, her artistic collaborations and her commitment to France during World War II. And the music! That voice! “Non Je Ne Regrette Rien” seems to pulse beneath the text of Burke’s book and, reading it, one c

I have always found something distinctly ‘un-British’ about the Mediterranean. I grew up thinking of the British empire – and British spirit – as being founded upon the open ocean: unconfined, stormy and there to be mastered. A route to the rest of the world and limitless opportunity. The Mediterranean, by contrast, always seemed a bit limp. It had no tides; its main purpose was as a tourist destination; it was (at least on its northern shore) very European in a way that Britain was not. It seemed as cramped as an Italian tourist beach in autumn. But I was very, very wrong. That is why reading Robert Holland‘s excellent book Blue Water Empire: the British in the Mediterranean since 1800 (Penguin, 2012) was such an eye opener to me. British history has been intimately bound up with the Med, and not just through the odd colonial oddity like Gibraltar or Malta, or through the search for a viable theatre in the Second World War. As Holland argues, it is the British that made the Med

This week’s podcast is an interview with David Stahel. I will be talking to him about his 2009 work, Operation Barbarossa and Germany’s Defeat in the East (Cambridge University Press, 2009). One of our previous guests, Matthias Strohn, recommended the book, and I am glad he did. Stahel’s book is an important contribution to our understanding of German planning for and execution of Operation Barbarossa. Stahel highlights the many flaws and paradoxes intrinsic to German thinking about war in the East, not least of which was the deception perpetrated by Halder, who masked the centrality of the drive on Moscow to his own plans in order to avoid confrontation with Hitler. By late August 1941, Stahel argues, the German failure decisively to defeat the Soviet regime (even while winning significant victories at places like Minsk and Smolensk) spelled doom for the Wehrmacht. Nor is Stahel resting on his laurels. By the time I conducted the interview, his second work had just hit the shelves. In Kiev

In Had Me a Real Good Time: Faces Before, During, and After (Omnibus 2011) Andy Neill provides a detailed account of Faces, one of the most popular and critically acclaimed groups of the early seventies. Neill begins his story with biographies of those who would become Faces including, of course, sections about each of their early bands: Ronnie Lane, Kenney Jones, and Ian “Mac” McLagan with Small Faces; Rod Stewart and Ron Wood with the Jeff Beck Group. The book’s mid-section details Face’s career through four albums and countless tours of England and, essential for their commercial success, the United States. Also included is an analysis of the balance that was sometime kept and sometimes not, between Face’s career and the career of their superstar sfront man, Rod Stewart. Neill devotes the final part of his story to the band’s break-up and the individual members’ post-Faces careers. All-in-all, Neill provides a richly researched history of a band and all the people

As several guests on this podcast have told us, sports have been fundamentally connected with the major developments of modern history: urbanization, class conflict, imperialism, political repression, globalization. The history of bicycle racing brings in another key ingredient of the modern age: technology. The sport began only with the invention of a machine, and its history, from the mid-1800s to today, has been linked to the constant adaptation of that machine. Andrew Ritchie documents the first decades of this history in his book Quest for Speed: A History of Early Bicycle Racing 1868-1903 (Cycle Publishing, 2011). As he explains in our interview, an important part of the story is the evolution of the bicycle, from early wood-and-steel models that rattled their riders, through the high-wheel bikes that we typically associate with 19th-century cycling, to the more familiar bicycles of the 1890s, with chain-driven rear wheels and pneumatic tires. An important point Andrew makes is that technological develo

When I was fourteen I was faced with a difficult choice. I was dreadful at languages but knew that I had another two years of brain-aching pain ahead of me full of verb tables and conjugations. The choice was between pain in French or pain in German. On the French side we had (for a fourteen year old) summer sun, beautiful women in skimpy dresses, and achingly cool films full of gruff types moodily smoking cigarettes. On the German side we had… Well, I was fourteen so I didn’t know much more than cars and wars. For some reason I chose German. It was by no means a bad decision. I spent several happy Easter holidays travelling to a small town just outside Frankfurt, where we stayed with German families, drank German beer and discovered German girls. We visited Heidelberg and the ominous, barbed wire border with East Germany. The sun shone. Somehow I even did pretty well in my German exams. A few years later I even ended up living in Vienna. The apparent oddness of my decision is something that is ta

When I was a kid I loved movies about Nazis who had escaped justice after the war. There was “The Marathon Man” (“Oh, don’t worry. I’m not going into that cavity. That nerve’s already dying.”). There was “The Boys from Brazil” (“The right Hitler for the right future! A Hitler tailor-made for the 1980s, 90s, 2000!”). And there was “The ODESSA File” (“Germany believes she doesn’t need us now…but one day she’ll know that she does!”). “The ODESSA File” was my favorite because it explained what really happened, how the evil Nazis formed a super-secret group (Organisation der Ehemaligen SS-Angeheorigen) to get themselves out of Germany so they could one day return to power. The trouble is that’s not what happened at all. In fact, there was no ODESSA. In 1947, someone tricked Nazi-hunter Simon Weisenthal into believing “ODESSA” existed (he was quite willing to be tricked). Then Fr

If you’re a native-born American, you’re probably familiar with Aunt Jemima (pancake syrup), Uncle Ben (precooked rice), and Rastus (oatmeal)–commercial icons all. They were co-oped in whole or part from stock characters in American minstrel shows, largely because they suggested to white consumers a comforting though bygone hospitality. Aunt Jemima said “You might not have a loving mammy to do your home cookin’, but you can eat as if you did.” I grew up with Aunt Jemima and loved her syrup dearly, so I knew this. But I did not know that a similar tradition of racist commercial icons existed in Imperial Germany. I do now, thanks to David Ciarlo‘s insightful Advertising Empire: Race and Visual Culture in Imperial Germany (Harvard UP, 2011). The Germans had been using images such as the “tobacco moor” to stamp their exotic trade goods since the eighteenth century. But it was only in the 1890s that they began to use the “moor” in mass advertising p

Many of us know that Nazi regime tried to control Germans’ fertility: some people should reproduce more, according to the National Socialists, and some should reproduce less or not at all. Policies like coercive sterilization for the supposedly “unfit” were the flip side to benefits for “racially fit” Germans who propagated. But the fact is, many states the world over have tried to exert control over their citizens’ reproductive practices. Even with radical differences in government, the notion that the state’s health depends in part on its citizens’ fertility can be remarkably stubborn. In her book, The Politics of Fertility in Twentieth-Century Berlin (Cambridge University Press, 2010), Historian Annette Timm takes us to “the belly of the beast”: to Germany’s capital, Berlin. But her interest isn’t so much in the ideology of reproductive politics as in its implementation. What programs did the German state – and the municipality

On November 10, 2009, Robert Enke stepped in front of an express train at a crossing in the German village of Eilvese. At age 32, Robert left behind a young family: he and his wife, Teresa, had just adopted a baby girl only six months earlier. And Robert was also at the top of his professional career. He was the star goalkeeper for the club Hannover 96 of the Bundesliga, and he was expected to be the starting keeper for the German national team at the World Cup in South Africa. But despite this success, and the new addition to his family, Robert was unable to overcome a severe clinical depression that had gripped him for months. Only a small circle of family and friends knew of the depth of his illness. For others, both those who knew Robert personally and those who knew of him only as one of Germany’s best footballers, his death was an incomprehensible shock. Ronald Reng was among those stunned by Robert Enke’s death.An award-winning German sports journalist based in Barcelona, Ronnie had meet R

The Victor’s Crown brings to vivid life the signal role of sport in the classical world. Ranging over a dozen centuries–from Archaic Greece through to the late Roman and early Byzantine empires–David Potter’s lively narrative shows how sport, to the ancients, was not just a dim reflection of religion and politics but a potent social force in its own right. The passion for sport among the participants and fans of antiquity has been matched in history only by our own time. Potter first charts the origins of competitive athletics in Greece during the eighth century BC and the emergence of the Olympics as a preeminent cultural event. He focuses especially on the experiences of spectators and athletes, especially in violent sports such as boxing and wrestling, and describes the physiology of conditioning, training techniques, and sport’s role in education. Throughout, we meet the great athletes of the past and learn what made them great. The rise of the Roman Empire transformed the sp

Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) was the author of numerous influential books and essays on political theory, law, and other subjects. In Carl Schmitt: Writings on War (Polity Press, 2011), Rhodes Scholar Timothy Nunan has provided us with an excellent translation of three of Schmitt’s essay on military affairs. These essays are relevant from a variety of perspectives. They reflect interwar debates about international law, neutrality, and the League of Nations and so are of interest to historians of the period. Schmitt was also a fervent supporter of Hitler and the Nazi party and so it may be surprising that his influence (note his longevity) may in some ways be increasing. His ideas about what constitutes an empire, his thoughts on “just war,” and on war crimes demand our attention despite our revulsion at his political views. For making more of Schmitt’s work accessible to an English-speaking audience, Nunan is to be thanked.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If Edith Sheffer‘s excellent Burned Bridge: How East and West Germans Made the Iron Curtain (Oxford UP, 2011) has a single lesson, it’s that dividing a country is not as easy as you might think. You don’t just draw a line and tell people that it’s now the “border,” for in order for borders to be borders, they have to be seen as such. Sheffer shows that for quite a number of years after 1945, the Germans in Neustadt and Sonneberg–closely situated towns in, respectively, the American and Soviet zones of occupation–didn’t really know whether the border was a border and, if so, what kind of border it was or should be. “It”–whatever it was–was shifting, lawless, contested, resented, profitable, and sometimes deadly. The Grenze at Burned Bridge was really a kind of anarchical region dividing people who were in no way different from one another but who were compelled to behave as if they were by two occupying powers. The degree to which th

We’ve dealt with the question of how racial categories and conceptions evolve on New Books in History before, most notably in our interview with Nell Irving Painter. She told us about the history of “Whiteness.” Today we’ll return to the history of racial ideas and listen to Andrew Curranexplain the history of “Blackness.” Doubtless Europeans have noted that different humans from different parts of the globe lookdifferent for millennia. But it was only relatively recently, as Curran explains in The Anatomy of Blackness: Science and Slavery in an Age of Enlightenment (Johns Hopkins UP, 2011), that they took a serious interest inexplaining these differences in a manner we would call “scientific.” There are two major reasons for this tardiness. First, metaphysical and biblical schemes provided the primary context for the interpretation of the human until the mid eighteenth century. Second, the most important scientific communities in Europe-those of France and Engl

This past summer Germany hosted the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup. The 32 matches drew more than 800,000 fans, while the total number of foreign tourists visiting Germany increased by nine per cent over the previous summer. The German government’s commissioner for tourism proudly declared that the success of the Women’s World Cup “strengthened the global image of Germany as a cosmopolitan and family-friendly travel destination with excellent infrastructure,” making the country the “world champion of hospitality.” As the statement shows, German officials are highly conscious of their nation’s “brand,” and the effectiveness of that brand in drawing tourists. The same can be said of other nations that host major international sporting events. Think of the attention to the “new South Africa” in 2010 or the “new China” in 2008. Organizers of these events do not simply plan a schedule of competitions; they seek to present an attractiv

“Before reggae there was rock steady, and before that, ska,” writes Cedella Marley in the foreword to Heather Augustyn’s 2010 book Ska: An Oral History (McFarland, 2010). By way of interviews with dozens of ska musicians, Augustyn traces the history of the music from its Jamaican roots, through its 2Tone revival in 1970’s and 80’s England, to its current regional popularity in the United States. She interviewed Derrick Morgan, Doreen Shaffer, Laurel Aitken, Toots Hibert, Judge Dread, Roddy Radiation, Dave Wakeling, Pauline Black, Kix Thompson, and Buster Bloodvessel to name just a few. The book provides a solid understanding of ska as a music with roots in American jazz and soul mixed with the indigenous music of the Carribean. Augustyn’s interviews also highlight the importance of Jamaica’s status as a former colony in the creation of English ska as well as providing an insight into the music’s reflection of British and Jamaican race and class relations. Most i

When I was in college in the 1980s, I liked to listen to Iggy Pop (aka James Newell Osterberg, Jr.). I was always mystified, however, by his song “Five Foot One,” with its odd and catchy refrain “I wish life could be/Swed-ish mag-a-zines!” What in the heck did that mean? I’d never seen a “Swed-ish mag-a-zine.” Thanks to Elizabeth Heineman‘s wonderful book Before Porn Was Legal: The Erotica Empire of Beate Uhse (University of Chicago Press, 2011), now I understand. You see, the last and perhaps most significant Swedish contribution (if that’s what it was) to Western Civilization was legalized hardcore porn. In the early 1970s the Swedes (and their porn-allies, the Danes) flooded European markets with the stuff. The Scandinavians were making a killing. As Lisa explains, the “Swedish Invasion” put the queen of the German erotica industry, Beate Uhse, in something of a bind – but it also came at a moment of great opportunity. In the first two