This is a memoir about the power of American assimilation and opportunity in the face of persisting refugee realities. Like Isaac Bashevis Singer, Monroe Price recounts the continuing impact of European identities as families, cast from their homes by the rise of Hitler and the Third Reich, struggle to find their way in a new and challenging environment.

In a series of reflections, Price, who was born to a Jewish family in Vienna in 1938 and left when he was seven months old, seeks to create the Vienna of his infancy, including Jewish life, anti-Semitism, the Anschluss, and Kristallnacht (during which his father was arrested). He shifts to scenes of American socialization in the places he moved with his parents:: Macon, Georgia, Cincinnati, Ohio, and the experience of New York City. Through these reflections, Price illuminates ideas about family, religion, friends and schooling as well as deeply personal issues such as home, food and intimacy.

Price’s memoir weaves complicated strands—his Viennese origins, campaigns to distribute Jewish refugees away from New York City, the special qualities of Midwestern Ohio life in the 1950s—and the contrasting patterns of adjustment by different generations in his family in the American landscape. As he traces the particular path of his own life, Price reveals a more universal story of adjustment, and the relationship between a marginal community and the drama of American citizenship.

This book explores how the alt-right has appropriated human rights rhetoric – once rooted in progressive ideals – to resist public health measures during the COVID-19 pandemic. Phrases like “My body, my choice” have been retooled to challenge vaccination and state intervention. The author interrogates the historical and ideological malleability of human rights, revealing how their universalist claims are often compromised by exclusionary and reactionary forces. Central to this analysis is the pandemic’s role in exposing science as an emerging political cleavage. Through the lens of political mistrust, pseudoscience, conspiracy thinking, and neoliberal crisis, the book examines the conditions that gave rise to right-wing human rights discourse – and asks whether the concept of rights can still hold emancipatory promise in an era of ecological breakdown and rising technopolitical conflicts.

The collection of well-researched essays assesses the uses and misuses of history 25 years after the collapse of Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe. As opposed to the revival of national histories that seemed to be the prevailing historiographical approach of the 1990s, the last decade has seen a particular set of narratives equating Nazism and Communism. This provides opportunities to exonerate wartime collaboration, casting the nation as victim even when its government was allied with Germany. While the Jewish Holocaust is acknowledged, its meaning and significance are obfuscated. In their comparative analysis the authors are also interested in new practices of ‘Europeanness’. Therefore their presentations of Slovak, Hungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Bosnian, Croatian and Slovenian post-communist memory politics move beyond the common national myths in order to provide a new insight into transnational interactions and exchanges in Europe in general. The juxtaposition of these politics, the processes in other parts of Europe, the modes of remembering shaped by displacement and the transnational enable a close encounter with the divergences and assess the potential of the formation of common, European memory practices.

This substantial essay depicts urban collapse in an exceptionally difficult period of the Serbian capital. The author has marshalled facts, reflections, photographs and other imagesto demonstrate the transformation of Belgrade during the Milošević years. With the theoretical grounding of cultural anthropology, history studies, culture of memory, history of art, and urbanism, Mileta Prodanović considers changes to the built environment and urban landscape in the city in the 1990s. He covers many visual aspects of life with great ingenuity: shopping centers, unregulated construction and “wild” modifications of buildings, new buildings (broadcasting studios, shops, homes) that do not fit the surroundings, bad taste in home furnishings (camp, kitsch), boondoggles such as the international art center, problematic historical markers like the obelisk of the eternal flame, billboards, store displays, electoral propaganda, graffiti, grave-markers and cemetery memorials, coins and paper money, calendars, beer labels, and even religious icons (and more). All this information is provided with some critique and much implied comparison to past standards.

This bilingual volume (Latin text with English translation) is the second in the series presenting hagiographical narratives from medieval Central Europe. It contains the most important hagiographical corpus of medieval Hungarian history: that of Saint Margaret (1242–1270), daughter of King Béla IV, who lived her life as a Dominican nun. Margaret’s cult started immediately after her death and the demand to examine her sanctity was first formulated in 1272. The canonization process recommenced in 1276, followed by further initiatives across the centuries. Margaret was eventually canonized only in 1943. Besides the full Latin text and the English translation of her oldest legend, written between 1272 and 1275, this volume contains the acts of the 110 testimonies of the papal investigation concerning her sainthood, recorded between July and October 1276 and prepared from existing source editions. In addition, the editors include a series of recently discovered documents, including a petition by the bishop of Várad (Oradea) to promote the cause, and the notarial records of a set of miracles that occurred at Margaret's grave in the second half of the fifteenth century. The annotated bilingual text is complemented by a select bibliography on Saint Margaret and her hagiography.

A unique application of social science software to generate typology and ranklist of transition models of twenty-nine countries in Europe and Asia, ranging from Estonia to Vietnam, Norkus provides a highly innovative internationally comparative causal analysis of the variation in political and economic outcomes after the first decade of post-communist transformations, using multi-value Qualitative Comparative Analysis and Tosmana programme. The analysis includes a critical revision of received dichotomies (e.g. on gradualism versus “shock therapy”), and contributes to current debates on the varieties of post-communist capitalism.This conceptual framework is applied in national case studies, searching for reasons behind successes and failures, with special consideration given to the possibility of alternatives to the Lithuanian way, and the challenges of populism in this country’s politics.

On Shaky Ground is a modernist novel written in the late 1930s and early 1940s and was originally published in Nazi occupied Kharkiv in 1942. One of the best examples of intellectual fiction of the time, the work summarizes the struggles of the Ukrainian intelligentsia in the late 1920s and early 1930s, when totalitarian reality, together with rampant industrialization, started to affect everyday life.

V. Domontovych is the pen name of Viktor Petrov, a historian and archaeologist, a representative of neoclassicism in Ukrainian literature. The novel follows the trajectory of art historian, Rostyslav Mykhailovych, who goes on a work trip from the capital city of Kharkiv to provincial Katerynoslav (today Dnipro), the place where he spent his childhood. In the late 1920s, a section of the Dnipro River became the place of a major industrial project, the construction of the largest hydroelectric station in Ukraine (Dniprelstan), which flooded the rapids over the river and led to serious ecological and social changes in the region. While the main goal of the trip is to save an old church from being turned into a museum, the journey becomes a philosophical reflection on dislocation and loss of connection with one’s birthplace, traditions, religion and more globally, a sense of security.

Melegh's work offers a powerful analysis of the sociological and symbolic meanings of East-West in Europe after the end of the Cold War. Melegh exposes the underbelly of liberal characterizations of East-West, highlighting the polarizing effect of extreme nationalism and ethnic racism. The theoretical underpinnings of this work involve the ideas of preeminent theorists such as Karl Mannheim, Michel Foucault and more recently Maria Todorova and Iver Neumann. The importance of this work lies in its ability to cast into fine relief how the "East-West Slope" oriented negatively from West to East has emerged from liberal characterizations of this project. In addition this is one of the first attempts to link post-colonial analysis to developments in Eastern Europe.

A new globally significant relationship arising after the break-up of the Soviet Union is the main topic of this unparalleled volume – the geopolitical link between Russia, Ukraine and the three bordering ‘Central European’ states, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. On the Edge is a path-breaking analysis of this triangular relationship with an in-depth focus on economic, political and, more importantly, security issues.

The expansion of NATO up to Ukraine’s borders is likely to leave Ukraine in a delicate position vis-à-vis Russia. On the Edge addresses key questions, such as: how are events in Ukraine affecting the security calculations of the Central European states; Central European relations with Russia and NATO; and relations among Central European states themselves? The volume examines what Central European states can do to solidify Ukraine’s independence and help it avoid international isolation.

On the Edge gives a Central European perspective on all these issues and suggests concrete forms of co-operation.

Estonia is perhaps the only country in Europe that lacks a comprehensive history of its Jewish minority. Spanning over 150 years of Estonian Jewish history, On the Margins is a truly unique book. Rebuilding a life beyond so-called Pale of Jewish Settlement in the Russian Empire, the Jewish cultural autonomy in interwar Estonia, and the trauma of Soviet occupation of 1940–41 are among the issues addressed in the book but most profoundly, the book wrestles with the subject of the Holocaust and its legacy in Estonia.

Specifically, it examines the quasi-legal system of murder instituted in Nazi-occupied Estonia, confiscation of Jewish property, and Jewish forced labor camps and develops an analysis of the causes of collaboration during the Holocaust. The book also explores the dynamics of war crimes trials in the Soviet Union since the 1960s and so-called denaturalization trials in the United States in the 1980s. The haunting memory of Soviet and Nazi rule, the book concludes, prevents a larger segment of today’s Estonian population from facing up to the Holocaust and the universal message that it carries.E

Based on comparative surveys, the author presents a study of social transformation in Central and Eastern Europe after 1989. Focusing on Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Russia and Slovakia, the author provides information relating to social structure, mobility, inequality, lifestyle and economic stratification. Applying the Erikson-Goldthorpe classification of class positions, Domanski effectively presents fully comparable data to enable political comparisons to be made with other countries, especially those with firmly established free market economies. As such, "On the Verge of Convergence" seeks to provide a clearer understanding of the on-going process of social transformation within developing capitalist societies.

Why has communism’s humanist quest for freedom and social justice without exception resulted in the reign of terror and lies? The authors of this collective volume address this urgent question covering the one hundred years since Lenin’s coup brought the first communist regime to power in St. Petersburg, Russia in November 1917. The first part of the volume is dedicated to the varieties of communist fantasies of salvation, and the remaining three consider how communist experiments over many different times and regions attempted to manage economics, politics, as well as society and culture. Although each communist project was adapted to the situation of the country where it operated, the studies in this volume find that because of its ideological nature, communism had a consistent penchant for totalitarianism in all of its manifestations.

This book is also concerned with the future. As the world witnesses a new wave of ideological authoritarianism and collectivistic projects, the authors of the nineteen essays suggest lessons from their analyses of communism’s past to help better resist totalitarian projects in the future.

Before the publication of this book, Alaine Polcz was widely recognized as a psychologist ministering to the needs of disturbed and incurably ill children and their families, as the author of numerous articles and several books on thanatology, and as the founder of the hospice movement in Hungary. The autobiographic account of the experiences of a woman, then 19-20, in the closing months of the Second World War. When it was first published, in 1991, the book was a revelation of past horrors in Hungary which, until then, had lingered on in the farthest reaches of the national memory as rumor and suspicion about the violent acts committed against women during a time of chaos, havoc, and savagery. The literary world quickly recognized the merits of this book: It was highly praised by Hungarian reviewers, awarded prizes, and has already been translated into French, Rumanian, Slovenian, and Serbian.

André Goodfriend was Deputy Chief of Mission from 2013 to 2015 at the US Embassy in Budapest. In the absence of an ambassador, most of the time he was Chargé d’Affaires. Goodfriend represented his country, and for that matter, liberal democracy, in the early period of the increasingly autocratic Orbán regime. This tenure was distinguished by an unusually high public visibility and broad-based popularity. This book contains the distilled essence of conversations recorded in the fall of 2015 and in the years after his departure.

Aside from Goodfriend’s reflections on his personal history, the main focus of the deliberations is on open government: its characteristics, preconditions, benefits, and its relation to modern diplomacy. The mindset of a democracy-rooted diplomat with a working experience in an increasingly autocratic regime lends a particular perspective to the topics discussed. These topics include the fight against corruption, the protection of civil society, crisis prevention, education, economy, international relations, applied humanities, and the use of the social and traditional media to achieve policy goals.

This book presents modern, “people-friendly” diplomacy in an era in which public officials are increasingly expected to be transparent and engaged.

Is the concept of open society still relevant in the 21st century? Do the current social, moral, and political realities call for a drastic revision of this concept? Here fifteen essays address real-world contemporary challenges to open society from a variety of perspectives. What unites the individual authors and chapters is an interest in open society’s continuing usefulness and relevance to address current problems. And what distinguishes them is a rich variety of geographical and cultural backgrounds, and a wide range of academic disciplines and traditions.

While focusing on probing the contemporary relevance of the concept, several chapters approach it historically. The book features a comprehensive introduction to the history and current ‘uses’ of the theory of open society. The authors link the concept to contemporary themes including education, Artificial Intelligence, cognitive science, African cosmology, colonialism, and feminism. The diversity of viewpoints in the analysis reflects a commitment to plurality that is at the heart of this book and of the idea of open society itself.

Macedonian raw opium was a highly sought-after pharmaceutical raw material. This book focuses on its cultivation and production, and the trafficking of opium-based narcotics. Vladan Jovanović offers fresh insight into a neglected and marginalized subject, tracing and contextualizing both the licit and the illicit processing and trade of opium alkaloids from the Western Balkans through Turkey, and on to the rest of the world between the two World Wars. 

His approach is to explore the subject both from the top down, involving the League of Nations and politicians and diplomats, as well as from the bottom up, through the analysis of the activities of smugglers, police, and ordinary people who participated in the production and distribution of opium. The author describes the process of relocating the illegal processing industry from Turkey and Bulgaria to Yugoslavia. He insightfully shows the implicit continuity of relations between the former Ottoman Empire and the newly constituted Yugoslav state in the form of bilateral political agreements.

He pays special attention to the illegal activities within the legal pharmaceutical industry and also exposes the role of criminal networks, which he situates in the appropriate political and social context. The exploration of this sensitive historical subject extends to other Balkan countries, along with Turkey, Western Europe, and the United States.

This book was triggered by the recent geopolitical shifts and the turn towards an allegedly post-factual era. "An Orderly Mess" gives a timely diagnosis of the current dissolution of the modern order, while highlighting the opportunities of messiness. The essay focuses on the temporal and spatial dimensions in which messiness becomes apparent today: broken time lines and fragmented spaces. Messiness is framed by a blurring of the world orderings inherited from modernity. Against the backdrop of rapid digitalization, we may find ourselves again in a phase of transition toward new ways of world ordering. The focus on messiness reveals the different patterns of order and disorder that underpin the current process of transition. In the second half of the volume the author revisits her 1989 book on Eigenzeit, which explored how moderns experience time, or are exposed to it. A quarter century later she finds that the new inventions of technology have challenged the traditional meaning of time (and also of space) even more, increasing the non-simultaneity of human existence. Today, small devices channel into one’s fingertips medial Eigenzeit: the time that one has to oneself in order to spend it with those who are absent. The past has shrunk and the present extends to the future: “there is no pre­determined future, only a future that is as radically open as it is inherently uncertain.”

Excerpts from over 100 travel writings of Europe, from 16th c. pilgrimage diaries thru early specimens of modern tourism accounts to 20th c. impressions from the other side of the Iron Curtain By focusing on east European travel writings, this work enlarges both the documentary base and the terms of the debate over a rich source for discussions of identities and mentalities; knowledge and power; gender; and cultural change. The texts – chosen for their relevance, but literary criteria have also been taken into account – illustrate the variety of ways in which east Europeans have written about the West. Most of the material is presented in English for the first time or, in a few cases, rescued from dusty oblivion in long out-of-print volumes. Each text is introduced with a short passage placing it in context. This is the first volume of the three-part set East Looks West. Vol. 2. Under Eastern Eyes. A Comparative Introduction to East European Travel Writing on Europe, 1550–2000; Vol. 3. A Bibliography of East European Travel Writing on Europe.

Written by a Brit who has lived in Poland for more than twenty years, this book challenges some accepted thinking in the West about Poland and about the rise of Law and Justice (PiS) as the ruling party in 2015. It is a remarkable account of the Polish post-1989 transition and contemporary politics, combining personal views and experience with careful fact and material collections. The result is a vivid description of the events and scrupulous explanations of the political processes, and all this with an interesting twist – a perspective of a foreigner and insider at the same time. Settled in the position of participant observer, Jo Harper combines the methods of macro and micro analysis with CDA, critical discourse analysis. He presents and interprets the constituent elements and issues of contemporary Poland: the main political forces, the Church, the media, issues of gender, the Russian connection, the much-disputed judicial reform and many others.

A special feature of the book is the detailed examination of the coverage of the Poland’s latest two elections, one in 2019 (parliamentary) and the other in 2020 (presidential) in the British media, an insightful and witty specimen of comparative cultural and political analysis.