New Books in Eastern European Studies

New Books Network

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/⁠ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies

  1. 19h ago

    Fascists of the World, Unite?: A History of Fascist Internationalism in the 1930s with Martin Kristoffer Hamre (de Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2025)

    Fascists of the World, Unite?: A History of Fascist Internationalism in the 1930s (de Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2025) analyzes the ideas and forms of international cooperation between Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and fascist movements from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Ireland, and Britain. The study examines how fascists attempted to unite across borders by forming international organizations and networks, hosting conferences and exhibitions, disseminating multilingual publications, and exchanging propaganda. Their transnational cooperation was fuelled by shared ideas of ultranationalism, anti-liberalism, anti-communism, antisemitism, racism, white supremacism, and Europeanism. The book argues that fascist internationalism, marked by contradictions, limitations, and an Italo-German rivalry, emerged in the 1930s as a counter-reaction to liberal and communist internationalism. The epilogue discusses reverberations in the Second World War and the postwar period and outlines the relevance of this history for understanding contemporary forms of far-right internationalism. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  2. 19h ago

    In Praise of Agnes Heller (1929-2019)

    Agnes Heller loved being part of the Budapest School--and she hated being part of any school. In his 2019 In Memoriam piece, John explored her ambivalence about intellectual camaraderie, its virtues and its vices. This experiment in reading Public Books articles aloud--akin to Books in Dark Times and Recall This Story and Recall This B-Side--follows on from JP's earlier Hannah Arendt articles and 2026 article about the Pope and AI. You can consult the footnotes on Agnes Heller and read a transcript by heading back to the article in its original 2019 form here. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  3. 2d ago

    Romania, the Little Entente and the Struggle for Europe with Owen Grey (Bloomsbury, 2026)

    Romania, the Little Entente and the Struggle for Europe (Bloomsbury, 2026) is the first in-depth, English-language study of Romania's role in the Little Entente-an alliance formed with Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia to defend the territorial status quo in Central and Eastern Europe after the First World War. While this alliance has often been dismissed in international historiography as peripheral, this book argues that the Little Entente was a critical, albeit fragile, experiment in regional security and interwar diplomacy. Anchored in Romania's foreign policy, it reinterprets the alliance as a revealing case study in small-state agency, collective security, and the entropic pressures of the post-war order. Whilst drawing on a wide range of Romanian diplomatic archives, press materials, and memoirs, many of which remain underutilized in anglophone scholarship, Grey also situates Romania's actions within the larger European context, assessing how regional alliances engaged with the League of Nations and evolving relationships with France, Germany, Italy, and Soviet Russia. Romania, the Little Entente and the Struggle for Europe moves beyond simplistic narratives of failure and instead presents a nuanced portrait of the Little Entente as a fragile, flawed, but earnest effort to secure peace in a precarious international order-one whose lessons resonate powerfully today.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  4. 6d ago

    Governing Islam in Austria and Germany, with Farid Hafez

    In this episode, hosts Claudia Radiven and Amina Easat-Daas were joined by Farid Hafez to discuss his most recently published book Governing Islam in Austria and Germany: From Colonial Times to the Present (Oxford UP, 2026). Hafez’s recent work centres on the comparative analysis of the Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the German rule in Tanzania, Togo and Cameroon, and in particular their respective treatment of Muslims in each case to then in turn shed light on the current governing of Muslimness in both. Farid Hafez is an assistant professor in International Relations at William and Mary, and also a senior researcher at Georgetown University. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  5. Oct 14

    Poles and Jews: A Call for Myth Reconstruction with Jennifer Stark-Blumenthal (Academic Studies Press, 2024)

    Nationalism’s global resurgence has upended societies. With the rise of the Polish nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, and American Jewry’s swift reaction to its law punishing people who allege Polish complicity in Holocaust crimes, both sides have revived old stereotypes. Stark-Blumenthal argues that American Jews’ disgust with Polish nationalism ought to be checked by America’s centuries-old embrace of white supremacy. Poles and Jews: A Call for Myth Reconstruction (Academic Studies Press, 2024) confronts both the anti-Polonism deeply embedded in the American Jewish community and Poland’s enduring relationship with antisemitism. Armed with two decades of research and in-depth interviews with scholars, community leaders, and laity in Poland and the U.S., Stark-Blumenthal dispels myths and considers new approaches to this relationship. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  6. Oct 11

    Refugees and Citizens in Twentieth-Century East Central Europe: An Unlikely Refuge? with Michal Frankl, Doina Anca Cretu and Lidia Zessin-Jurek (CEU Press, 2026)

    In this episode of the CEU Press Podcast host Andrea Talabér talked to Michal Frankl, Doina Anca Cretu and Lidia Zessin-Jurek about the new edited volume Refugees and Citizens in Twentieth-Century East Central Europe: An Unlikely Refuge? We discussed the reception of the ERC-project the volume is based on at a time of heightened narratives about refugees and the place of Central and Eastern Europe in the scholarship, reflecting on the current relevance of the project. The Zotero bibliography for the project is openly available, please click here to access it. You can purchase a copy here. The book is also available Open Access here. The CEU Press Podcast delves into various aspects of the publishing process: from crafting a book proposal, finding a publisher, responding to peer review feedback on the manuscript, to the subsequent distribution, promotion and marketing of academic books. We also talk to series editors and authors, who will share their experiences of getting published and discuss their series or books. Interested in CEU Press’s publications? Click here to find out more: here  Stay tuned for future episodes and subscribe to our podcast to be the first to be notified.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

    Refugees and Citizens in Twentieth-Century East Central Europe: An Unlikely Refuge? with Michal Frankl, Doina Anca Cretu and Lidia Zessin-Jurek (CEU Press, 2026)

  7. Oct 9

    Yiddish Scholarship Comes to America: The YIVO Institute at 100 with Kalman Weiser (Wayne State UP, 2026)

    This comprehensive history of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research—a groundbreaking American Jewish cultural organization, library, and research center—details its longstanding efforts to preserve eastern European Jewish culture during a century of genocide and mass emigration. Founded in 1925, YIVO was a global organization with headquarters in Vilna until World War II. It represented the symbolic pinnacle of building a modern, secular Yiddish culture. Yet post-war, YIVO struggled to establish itself on a new continent, to reclaim what had survived of its Vilna collections, to document a lost world, and to impart the value of eastern European Jewish history and culture to new generations. Through the institute's steady commitment to establishing itself in New York and beyond, Yiddish language learning and scholarship became a crucial part of post-Holocaust Jewish life in a time when Hebrew was increasingly promoted in Jewish communities. Drawing on extensive archival research and oral histories, Weiser focuses on the transitional period of the YIVO Institute from 1940 to 1970 and showcases how the institute carved its own path toward scholarship and public engagement that remained true to its founding ethos—"from the folk, for the folk, and with the folk"—while acclimating to American society and mainstream Jewish culture. Kalman Weiser is the Silber Family Professor of Modern Jewish Studies and director of the Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Studies at York University. Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  8. Sep 18

    Anna D. Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann, "Pierogi: An American Story of Polish Food" (Columbia UP, 2026)

    Today, pierogi are the most recognizable Polish food in the United States and a symbol of Polish American identity. How did this humble dish attain such lofty status? In Pierogi: An American Story of Polish Food (Columbia UP, 2026), Professor Anna D. Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann explores the surprising history of pierogi, tracing how Polish cuisine evolved in the multiethnic landscape of the United States. When Polish immigrants crossed the ocean, they brought with them their traditional cuisine, which came to signify enduring attachment to homeland, family, religion, and culture. In time, they as well as new generations and new immigrant waves gradually transformed Polish American culinary culture, reflecting food trends and changes in the United States, Poland, and the world. Pierogi takes readers into the kitchens where Polish American families, friends, and community organizations carry on the custom of cooking and eating together. Dr. Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann highlights small- and large-scale pierogi producers who adapted traditional dishes for the US market and food celebrities who mainstreamed them, and she traces the symbolic representation of pierogi in popular culture. She also shares personal stories, from her family’s resourcefulness in communist-era Poland facing near-constant food shortages to her experiences as an immigrant to the United States in the 1980s. Drawing on sources from historical and recent cookbooks to interviews with Polish American entrepreneurs and community members, this book offers new insights for anyone interested in East Central European and American foodways. 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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See All (600)

4.3
out of 5
27 Ratings

About

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/⁠ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies

Information

More From New Books Network

You Might Also Like