Books & ideas

Raised Among the Ruins

Charlotte Canizo — 2026-03-05T09:00:00Z

By adopting a child's perspective, Camille Mahé shows that younger children perceived the Second World War differently than adults.

Being a Man Under Nazism

Élisa Goudin — 2024-06-04T13:19:00Z

A history of masculinity and a history of men, this collective volume shows that while “ideal” Nazi masculinity was opposed to that of Jews and homosexuals, it was also contested and fragmented, both in the private sphere and on the battlefield.

Sexual Freedom under Nazism

Élisa Goudin — 2023-05-23T08:24:54Z

The Nazi regime encouraged Germans to indulge in playful heterosexual activity. Many “Aryan” women were given an opportunity to develop professionally and emotionally. Was there a contradiction between promoting people's sexual freedom while depriving them of political freedom?

Of Cities and Their Mores

Denis Bocquet — 2018-11-12T08:00:00Z

What do late nineteenth-century Berlin and Cairo have in common? The German historian Joseph Ben Prestel accepts the challenge of comparing these two cities in order to interrogate the boundaries between Europe and the Middle East, as well as orientalism's assumptions.

The New German Far Right

Élisa Goudin — 2018-04-09T07:00:00Z

The recent rise of the far right has disrupted the political balance in Germany. Its racism illustrates the failings of both denazification and historical introspection in the West. The next elections are in 2021… watch this space.

A Splendid Isolation

Olivier Fillieule & Fabien Jobard — 2016-10-10T07:00:00Z

Whereas in France police forces deemed guilty of brutality have called for a demonstration against “anti-cop hatred,” in Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland, the interaction between the police and protesters is marked by restraint and dialogue. The French police are resisting the new models of policing built around the concept of de-escalation. Olivier Fillieule and Fabien Jobard explain the reasons for this doctrinal retrenchment.

The Recovered Memory of Stolen Works of Art

Cristelle Terroni — 2016-02-22T08:00:00Z

Works of art, prime objects of desire at the best of times, are intimately connected to the history of wars, annexations and conquests. In this history, Bénédicte Savoy discusses the transnational history of spoliations or “patrimonial translocations”, and the long-lasting memory of such traumatic events. “

German Debates on Inequality and Public Policy

Ulrike Stein — 2014-12-18T08:00:00Z

In our third text published in partnership with Public Books, Ulrike Stein shows how the vivid empirical material and proposals for reform provided by Thomas Piketty's book Capital in the Twenty-First Century bring new grist to the inequality debate in Germany. The “Piketty effect” is visible in many areas even before the release of the German edition, and both supporters and opponents of his work seize the opportunity to publicize their arguments on the subject of inequality.

Art History in the Time of Nationalism

William Diebold — 2014-09-22T07:30:00Z

Between the start of the Franco-Prussian War and the rise to power of Adolf Hitler, art historians in Germany and France were studying the Italian Renaissance and the Gothic monuments of the Middle Ages. Passini's recent book analyses the role of French and German nationalism in the shaping of art history.

Walter Benjamin, under the Sign of Saturn

Benjamin Balint — 2014-03-20T09:00:00Z

In a new biography, Howard Eiland and Michael W. Jennings recount the decisive moments of Walter Benjamin's life – his work on tragic drama and allegory, his friendship with Gershom Scholem and Bertolt Brecht, his flight from Germany in 1933 and subsequent years in Paris –, focusing on his fascination with the messianic meaning of the everyday.