Search Results

Displaying 49 - 72 of 1215
book cover - Helmut Walser Smith, The Butcher’s Tale: Murder and Anti-Semitism in a German Town

Top Ten Origins: Summer 2019 Must Reads

… The perfect companion to nearly any summer activity is a good book. And, … to put on your summer reading list. All of them relate to European history, my area of specialty. I have selected … present. 3. David Olusoga, The World’s War: Forgotten Soldiers of Empire , Head of Zeus, 2014.  Reminding us that the …
Cover of A Wicked Company The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment by Philipp Blom.

Dangerous (Thinking) Liaisons

Review of A Wicked Company: The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment, by Philipp Blom (New York: Basic Books, 2010)
… others people's work in his role as editor of the Encyclopédie, although he wrote a number of his own philosophical … 10, rue des Moulins, "the epicenter of intellectual life in Europe." The number of intellectual giants that graced the … the proceedings.  Blom reminds us of their menace when he points out that in 1768, some readers of Holbach's …

The Long Legacy of World War I

… Ottoman, and German empires that had dominated Europe for centuries no longer existed, broken up into a new … democracies, and political experiments such as Bolshevik communism. Much of Europe lay in tatters and virtually an … world. The Lost Generation: Keeping Watch over Absent Bodies by Bruno Cabanes The First World War was a crucial …
Ajax, The Dutch, The War: the Strange Tale of Soccer During Europe's Darkest Hour, by Simon Kuper Book cover.

Is It Only A Game?

Review of Ajax, The Dutch, The War: the Strange Tale of Soccer During Europe's Darkest Hour, by Simon Kuper (New York: Nation Books, 2012)
… And I put everything into it I could, and still do. . . . Somebody once said football's a matter of life and death to … opportunity to delve into a subject dear to my heart but completely outside of my own research. Much to my delight, … everyone in between interested in the subject of Jewish and European politics. Kuper's treatment of Dutch soccer before, …
Riot police officers in Kyiv, December 2013

A Postcard from Kyiv: A Year of Reckoning for Ukraine

… and rising tensions between Russia and the United States/European Union that are reminiscent of the darkest of Cold … in Kyiv,  December 2013 The year 2014 will no doubt become a caesura, a line dividing Ukraine’s history into … we cannot even enjoy our victory there. Because people died, people who in the critical moment, with wooden boards …
Infamous photograph of German soldiers rounding up Jews for deportation in the Warsaw Ghetto, 1943.

Weathering the Storm: Wartime Lives of Ordinary People

Review of An Iron Wind: Europe Under Hitler, by Peter Fritzsche (New York: Basic Books, 2016)
… In his new book An Iron Wind: Europe Under Hitler , historian Peter Fritzsche examines the … failed each other.  Infamous photograph of German soldiers rounding up Jews for deportation in the Warsaw Ghetto, … German soldier. Fritzsche is particularly interested in comparing the French and Polish accounts about sharing space …
resident Harry Truman, left, congratulates Gen. George Marshall (architect of the Marshall Plan) , Fair Use via AP

The Marshall Plan

The Marshall Plan, signed into law by President Harry Truman on April 3, 1948, was intended to revive the economies of war-torn Western Europe.
… President Harry Truman signed the European Recovery Act into law on April 3, 1948. The Marshall Plan, as it’s more commonly known, was intended to revive the economies of war-torn Western Europe. Extending nearly $13 billion to primarily France, … was intended to revive the economies of war-torn Western Europe. …
“Aux amateurs de physique.” Likewise portraying the Tuileries flight, this cartoon mocks the unwashed masses who wished to see the spectacle without a ticket, but the scaling of the garden walls also illustrates how the balloon as a “people-machine” ignited the determination of the poorer, disempowered social strata to overcome restraints imposed on them by the authoritarian regime.

Public Perceptions: Ballooning and Political Culture

Review of The Imagined Empire: Balloon Enlightenments in Revolutionary Europe, by Mi Gyung Kim (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2016)
… Imagined Empire: Balloon Enlightenments in Revolutionary Europe , the balloon became the national artifact of late … below portrays the craft as a “king-machine” that embodies the monarchy’s obligation to watch over its subjects … of the poorer, disempowered social strata to overcome restraints imposed on them by the authoritarian regime. …

Outdoing Panama: Turkey’s ‘Crazy’ Plan to Build an Istanbul Canal

… had imagined for Istanbul, the largest city in Turkey—and Europe. It would be ambitious. Massive. It would be a "crazy … like the star and crescent on the Turkish flag? Or, a solution once and for all to Istanbul's troubles on the Bosporus—a strait crowded not only with urban commuters and pleasure craft, but Russian oil tankers …
Ukrainian soldier with blue and yellow ribbon overlay

Understanding the War in Ukraine: Insights from the Recent Past, 1991—Present

… Ohio State University History Professor David Hoffmann examines some key moments in recent … Department Chair of the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures and Director of the Center for Slavic, East European & Eurasian Studies. This lecture is a part of the Center for Slavic, East …
Painting of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

Memories of the Great War

… bring us first-hand stories of how the Great War is being commemorated across the globe. Brenna Miller joined us from … Asian empire and now an economic powerhouse. ( Image Source ) … of history at The Ohio State University. I specialize in European history and specifically on the socialist era in …
anti-communists and nationalists place a Hungarian national flag atop a demolished statue of Josef Stalin

The 1956 Hungarian Revolution

The date, October 23, 1956, marked the beginning of the ill-fated revolution that ended with the re-imposition of Communist rule and the flight of some 200,000 Hungarians to Western Europe and the United States.
… ill-fated revolution that ended with the re-imposition of Communist rule and the flight of some 200,000 Hungarians to Western Europe and the United States. It remains a somber … rule and the flight of some 200,000 Hungarians to Western Europe and the United States. …
UPA soldiers charge

West Ukraine's War Stories: A New Chapter?

The region of western Ukraine makes up just a small percentage of the territory and population of present-day Ukraine, but has historically played an outsized role in the 20th century struggles for control of eastern Europe.
… role in the 20th century struggles for control of eastern Europe. Written by Kathryn David. Narration by Dr. Nicholas … role in the 20th century struggles for control of eastern Europe. … Europe …
Botanic Blooming sagebrush on the great plains

Why the Great Plains Are Dying

… and dry places, like much of the American West, will become even more parched. John Wesley Powell is rolling over … were prepared to face those limits, restrain our use of resources, and re-imagine our national aspirations so that … public land in the West that resulted from Powell’s report died a slow procedural death. Events proved Powell right, of …
The Epsom Clock Tower in the UK.

How Clocks Helped Conquer the World

… note that you're holding the tool Western Europeans used to conquer the world. A clock? Conquer the … never set. How did these backward ninth-century Europeans accomplish all this? The obvious answer is "science and … music to regiments and powerful armies. The political philosopher Machiavelli noted that just as a dancing man "keeps …
The Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Rus not Russia

… through a specious reading of history beginning with the medieval period and moving through the Soviet Union’s … as “Game of Thrones” and “Vikings,” but that of eastern Europe rarely registers on the radars of most Americans. … not acknowledge. Rusian pilgrims travelled to Santiago de Compostela in northern Iberia, as we see from the …
A Church in Novgorod Russia

Russia and the World

… But what exactly does Russia want? And how does this compare to its ambitions in the past? In this episode of History Talk , hosts Jessica Blissit and Brenna … Miller talk to two experts— Stephen Norris and Gerry Hudson —about the Russian perspective on world affairs and the …
Lenin waving flag in front of crowd of workers and soldiers

From Romanovs to Reds: Russia's Revolutions at 100

… In the aftermath, a myriad of political, economic, social, and cultural changes reshaped life inside Russia as the establishment of the Soviet Union upended the global order. To mark the 100-year … Revolutions, hosts Brenna Miller and Jessica Viñas-Nelson interview expert guests Drs. Angela Brintlinger , …
JFK and Jackie Kennedy on a sailboat

Watching JFK Live and Die Years Later

… crippled by cancer. Al argues that saving Kennedy would also “save his brother. Save Martin Luther King. Stop the race … events of November 22, 1963, in Dallas. Conservative radio commentator Bill O’Reilly’s best-selling nonfiction book … The End of Camelot (authored with Martin Dugard, 2012) comes to life in a docudrama on the National Geographic …
Rural school children looking at a globe in 1943.

The Debate That Won’t Die

… voice of the 1920s, warned that “problems are often not solved. . .they merely give way to others.” Dewey might have … hibernation. The return of the problem today has been accompanied by its earlier logic. There is a striking … insisting that “the great principle is the right of every community to judge and decide for itself, whether a thing is …