Berghahn Books: 740 books
When God Comes to Town
Religious Traditions in Urban Contexts
Language: English
Release Date: May 1, 2009
Around 1800 roughly three per cent of the human population lived in urban areas; by 2030 this number is expected to have gone up to some seventy per cent. This poses problems for traditional religions that are all rooted in rural, small-scale societies. The authors in this volume question what the...
The State and the Arts
Articulating Power and Subversion
Language: English
Release Date: August 1, 2008
Judith Kapferer and her collaborators present an insightful volume that interrogates relations between the state and the arts in diverse national and cultural settings. The authors critique the taken-for-granted assumption about the place of the arts in liberal or social democratic states and the...
Postsocialism
Politics and Emotions in Central and Eastern Europe
Language: English
Release Date: March 1, 2006
In many parts of post-socialist Europe the tumultuous political and economic developments have generated strong emotions, ranging from hope and euphoria to disappointment, envy, disillusionment, sorrow, loneliness, and hatred. Yet these aspects have been largely neglected in analyses of the profound...
Death of the Father
An Anthropology of the End in Political Authority
Language: English
Release Date: December 1, 2003
The death of authority figures like fathers or leaders can be experienced as either liberation or loss. In the twentieth century, the authority of the father and of the leader became closely intertwined; constraints and affective attachments intensified in ways that had major effects on the organization...
Friendly Enemies
Britain and the GDR, 1949-1990
Language: English
Release Date: May 1, 2010
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...
The Engaged Historian
Perspectives on the Intersections of Politics, Activism and the Historical Profession
Language: English
Release Date: April 1, 2019
On the surface, historical scholarship might seem thoroughly incompatible with political engagement: the ideal historian, many imagine, is a disinterested observer focused exclusively on the past. In truth, however, political action and historical research have been deeply intertwined for as long...
History and Belonging
Representations of the Past in Contemporary European Politics
Language: English
Release Date: June 13, 2018
In cultural and intellectual terms, one of the EU’s most important objectives in pursuing unification has been to develop a common historical narrative of Europe. Across ten compelling case studies, this volume examines the premises underlying such a project to ask: Could such an uncontested history...
Shadowlands
Memory and History in Post-Soviet Estonia
Language: English
Release Date: January 1, 2016
Located within the forgotten half of Europe, historically trapped between Germany and Russia, Estonia has been profoundly shaped by the violent conflicts and shifting political fortunes of the last century. This innovative study traces the tangled interaction of Estonian historical memory and national...
Divining History
Prophetism, Messianism and the Development of the Spirit
Language: English
Release Date: August 1, 2016
For millennia, messianic visions of redemption have inspired men and women to turn against unjust and oppressive orders. Yet these very same traditions are regularly decried as antecedents to the violent and authoritarian ideologies of modernity. Informed in equal parts by theology and historical...
Playing with Languages
Children and Change in a Caribbean Village
Language: English
Release Date: September 1, 2012
Over several generations villagers of Dominica have been shifting from Patwa, an Afro-French creole, to English, the official language. Despite government efforts at Patwa revitalization and cultural heritage tourism, rural caregivers and teachers prohibit children from speaking Patwa in their presence....
Marginal At the Center
The Life Story of a Public Sociologist
Language: English
Release Date: June 1, 2012
A self-proclaimed guerrilla fighter for ideas, Baruch Kimmerling was an outspoken critic, a prolific writer, and a “public” sociologist. While he lived at the center of the Israeli society in which he was involved as both a scientist and a concerned citizen, he nevertheless felt marginal because...
by
Language: English
Release Date: March 28, 2018
Language: English
Release Date: March 28, 2018
Collaboration between experts and the public is vital for effective community engagement aimed at improving the lives of the most vulnerable in society, whether at the local or global level. Using case-based and theoretical chapters that examine rural and urban communities of practice, this volume...
Territorial Revisionism and the Allies of Germany in the Second World War
Goals, Expectations, Practices
Language: English
Release Date: December 1, 2012
A few years after the Nazis came to power in Germany, an alliance of states and nationalistic movements formed, revolving around the German axis. That alliance, the states involved, and the interplay between their territorial aims and those of Germany during the interwar period and World War II are...
Conjuring Hope
Healing and Magic in Contemporary Russia
Language: English
Release Date: December 1, 2005
Notions of magic and healing have been changing over past years and are now understood as reflecting local ideas of power and agency, as well as structures of self, subjectivity and affect. This study focuses on contemporary urban Russia and, through exploring social conditions, conveys the experience...