Episodes

  • Jonathan Blackwood and Jasmina Tumbas, "Contemporary Art in the Post-Yugoslav Space" (Routledge, 2025)

    Jonathan Blackwood and Jasmina Tumbas, "Contemporary Art in the Post-Yugoslav Space" (Routledge, 2025)
    Mar 24 2026
    Contemporary Art in the Post-Yugoslav Space explores the production, discussion, and consumption of contemporary art across the post-Yugoslav region. Bringing together 16 original contributions, the work explores how and why contemporary art discourses have continued to navigate the chronic difficulties facing local cultural economies since the dissolution of socialist Yugoslavia's common federal space. Framed by the concept of hauntology, the contributors foreground various "ghosts" of the Yugoslav past — from its anti-fascist and non-alignment legacies, to histories of queer and feminist movements and artistic activism — as a lens for examining the present state of affairs both regionally and globally. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies
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    1 hr and 21 mins
  • The Jews in Poland-Lithuania and Russia: 1350 to the Present Day

    The Jews in Poland-Lithuania and Russia: 1350 to the Present Day
    Mar 23 2026
    For centuries, Poland and Russia formed the heartland of the Jewish world. Until World War II, this area was home to over forty percent of world Jewry: nearly three and a half million Jews lived in Poland, and nearly three million more lived in the Soviet Union. Although the majority of American and European Jews originate from Eastern Europe, the history of this life and civilization is not well known, or has been reduced to a story of persecution and martyrdom. In his masterful three-volume history, The Jews in Poland and Russia: 1350 to the Present Day, Polonsky avoids sentimentalism and mythologizing, and provides a comprehensive and detailed account of this great civilization. From the towns and shtetls where Jews lived, to the emergence of Hasidism and the Haskalah movement, to the rise of Jewish urbanization, and Polish-Jewish relations during World War II, Polonsky’s book dispels myths about this culture, while demonstrating the importance of Poland and Russia as a great center of Jewish life. Winner of the 2011 Kulczycki Book Prize for Polish Studies, and the Pro Historia Polonorum Prize for the best book on the history of Poland published in a foreign language between 2007 and 2011. This book talk originally took place on October 22, 2013 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies
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    1 hr and 9 mins
  • The Vilna Gaon and the Making of Modern Judaism

    The Vilna Gaon and the Making of Modern Judaism
    Mar 22 2026
    The beginnings of contemporary Jewry are often associated with Jewish figures in Western Europe such as Moses Mendelssohn. But in his book, The Genius: Elijah of Vilna and the Making of Modern Judaism, Eliyahu Stern offers a new and provocative narrative for understanding contemporary Jewish life, which begins in the East, with the leading East European mystic and rabbinic scholar of the 18th century, Elijah ben Solomon, or the “Vilna Gaon.” Eliyahu Stern joined in conversation with Jeremy Dauber for a discussion about the Vilna Gaon, his influence on modern Judaism, and why his legacy has been claimed by traditionalists, enlighteners, Zionists and the Orthodox. Winner of the 2012 Samuel and Ronnie Heyman Prize for Outstanding Scholarly Publication Finalist for the 2013 Sami Rohr Prize in Jewish Literature Eliyahu Stern was the Tell fellow at the YIVO Institute in 2004. This book talk originally took place on November 7, 2013. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies
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    1 hr and 2 mins
  • Andrew I. Port, "Germany" (Polity, 2025)

    Andrew I. Port, "Germany" (Polity, 2025)
    Mar 22 2026
    Few countries are more haunted by the darker aspects of their history than Germany. Nazi crimes continue to cast a long shadow at home and abroad. Germans have nevertheless managed to put their violent, genocidal past behind them, creating a peaceful and prosperous democracy at the heart of Europe. In this refreshing book Germany (Polity, 2025), Andrew I. Port tells the story of that extraordinary transformation, from the vilified, destitute and divided Germany of 1945 to the respected, wealthy and unified international power we recognize today. Tracing the histories of the eastern and western halves of postwar Germany in tandem, he highlights their obvious differences and unexpected commonalities. This novel approach explains not only the country’s many accomplishments since the fall of the Berlin Wall, but also the challenges it has faced—from the difficulty of unifying two distinct societies to violent forms of xenophobia and the rise of extremist parties. Whether the Federal Republic remains a stable and successful power is the new “German Question” of the twenty-first century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies
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    1 hr and 14 mins
  • Gudrun Persson, "Russian Military Thought: The Evolution of Strategy Since the Crimean War" (Georgetown UP, 2025)

    Gudrun Persson, "Russian Military Thought: The Evolution of Strategy Since the Crimean War" (Georgetown UP, 2025)
    Mar 15 2026
    The development of the Russian military's strategic thought is an understudied and thus misunderstood subject in the West. Strategy in Russia encompasses the broader context of foreign and domestic policy as well as the military's ties to the country's leadership. The military's strategic thought is closely linked to Russia's existence as a state and explains patterns of Russian confrontation. In Russian Military Thought: The Evolution of Strategy Since the Crimean War (Georgetown UP, 2025), the renowned scholar Gudrun Persson offers novel insights into Russian military thought on doctrine and strategy, from the Crimean War to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Persson dismantles the simplistic notion that Russian military thought is "backward," instead presenting a deeper analysis of the drivers that influence the changes in Russian military strategy. Through archival research based on Russian language sources, Persson offers a multidisciplinary perspective, drawing on theoretical insights from history and political science that enable her to make a nuanced, qualitative analysis. This book will be essential reading for practitioners, scholars, and students who seek to understand the mind-set of the current Russian leadership and the constraints that shape Russia's future possibilities.Gudrun Persson is an associate professor of Slavic studies at Stockholm University. She is the author of Learning from Foreign Wars: Russian Military Thinking 1859–1873 and a member of the Swedish Royal Academy of War Sciences, Chatham House, and the Swedish Writers' Union.Stephen Satkiewicz is an independent scholar with research areas spanning Civilizational Sciences, Social Complexity, Big History, Historical Sociology, Military History, War Studies, International Relations, Geopolitics, and Russian and East European history. He is currently the Book Review Editor for Comparative Civilizations Review. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies
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    1 hr and 22 mins
  • Populism, Polarization and Politics: Hungary on the Eve of Elections

    Populism, Polarization and Politics: Hungary on the Eve of Elections
    Mar 10 2026
    How and why do leaders like Hungary’s Viktor Orban not only come to power, but remain in power for so long (in Orban’s case 16 years)? And why does the impending election provide a serious challenge to Orban and his party Fidesz? Join Tim Haughton and guests Emilia Palonen and Zsolt Enyedi for a discussion that examines contemporary Hungary on the eve of parliamentary elections and places the country’s recent experience in historical and comparative perspective. Emilia Palonen is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Helsinki and the author of The Birth and Death of Liberal Democracy in Hungary: the Populist Logic of Polarisation as Hegemony which was published last year by Helsinki University Press. Zsolt Enyedi is Professor of Political Science at the Central European University. He is the co-author of the acclaimed Party System Closure: Party Alliances, Government Alternatives and Democracy in Europe published by Oxford University Press in 2021. Moreover, he led a three year Horizon Project, AuthLIB looking at neo-authoritarianisms in Europe and the liberal democratic response which has just concluded. Tim Haughton is Professor of Comparative and European Politics and a Deputy Director of CEDAR at the University of Birmingham. The People, Power, Politics podcast brings you the latest insights into the factors that are shaping and re-shaping our political world. It is brought to you by the Centre for Elections, Democracy, Accountability and Representation (CEDAR) based at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies
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    1 hr and 9 mins
  • The Shtetl: Myth and Reality with Samuel Kassow

    The Shtetl: Myth and Reality with Samuel Kassow
    Feb 27 2026
    Even those who do not know much Yiddish have probably heard the word “shtetl,” but what does that word mean exactly? Can we just say that it was a small town in Eastern Europe with a lot of Jews—and leave it at that? Or was the shtetl that nostalgic world of “tradition” so lovingly celebrated in Fiddler on the Roof? How are we to understand imaginary shtetls like Sholom Aleichem’s Kasrilevke, where the “little people” ran around, talked non stop, and tried to make sense of a world they could no longer understand or control? Indeed the “shtetl” meant many things to many people. For many Zionists and Jewish leftists, the shtetl was a pathetic symbol of Jewish backwardness. Others cherished it as a place of real Jewishness, that fixed point that gave Jews in the diaspora the feeling of being home. The destruction of the Holocaust encouraged this nostalgia for the lost shtetl, especially as many Jews in the post-war world, newly comfortable and secure in their new homes, showed a new interest in their ethnic roots. In this lecture, YIVO Visiting Research Historian Samuel Kassow will explore the “real shtetl” and the “imagined shtetl,” which both formed an integral part of Eastern European Jewish peoplehood. Jonathan Brent is the Executive Director and CEO of YIVO. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies
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    1 hr and 9 mins
  • Mark D. Steinberg, "Moral Storytelling in 1920s New York, Odessa, and Bombay: Sex, Crime, Violence, and Nightlife in the Modern City" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

    Mark D. Steinberg, "Moral Storytelling in 1920s New York, Odessa, and Bombay: Sex, Crime, Violence, and Nightlife in the Modern City" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
    Feb 21 2026
    Using public storytelling as a driving force, Moral Storytelling in 1920s New York, Odessa, and Bombay: Sex, Crime, Violence, and Nightlife in the Modern City (Bloomsbury, 2026) by Dr. Mark D. Steinberg explores everyday social moralities relating to stories of sex, crime, violence, and nightlife in the 1920s city space. Focusing on capitalist New York, communist Odessa, and colonial Bombay, Dr. Steinberg taps into the global dimension of complex everyday moral anxiety that was prevalent in a vital and troubled decade.Moral Storytelling in 1920s New York, Odessa, and Bombay compares and connects stories of the street in three compelling cosmopolitan port cities. It offers novel insights into significant and varied areas of study, including city life, sex, prostitution, jazz, dancing, gangsters, criminal undergrounds, cinema, ethnic and racial experiences and conflicts, prohibition and drinking, street violence, 'hooliganism' and other forms of 'deviance' in the contexts of capitalism, colonialism, communism, and nationalism.The book tells the stories of moralizers: empowered and insistent critics of deviance driven to investigate, interpret, and interfere with how people lived and played. Beside them, not always comfortably, were the policemen and journalists who enforced and documented these efforts. It also reveals the histories of women and men, mostly working class and young, who were observed and categorized: those judged to be wayward, disreputable, disorderly, debauched, and wild. Dr. Steinberg explores this global culture war and the everyday moral improvisations-shaped by experiences of class, generation, gender, ethnicity, and race-that came with it. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies
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    1 hr and 4 mins