New Books in German Studies

Marshall Poe
  • 4.5 (33)
  • SOCIETY & CULTURE
  • UPDATED SEMIWEEKLY

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/german-studies

  1. JAN 31

    Peter H. Wilson, "Iron and Blood: A Military History of the German-Speaking Peoples Since 1500" (Harvard UP, 2023)

    German military history is typically viewed as an inexorable march to the rise of Prussia and the two world wars, the road paved by militarism and the result a specifically German way of war. Peter Wilson challenges this narrative. Looking beyond Prussia to German-speaking Europe across the last five centuries, Wilson finds little unique or preordained in German militarism or warfighting. Iron and Blood: A Military History of the German-Speaking Peoples Since 1500 (Harvard UP, 2023) takes as its starting point the consolidation of the Holy Roman Empire, which created new mechanisms for raising troops but also for resolving disputes diplomatically. Both the empire and the Swiss Confederation were largely defensive in orientation, while German participation in foreign wars was most often in partnership with allies. The primary aggressor in Central Europe was not Prussia but the Austrian Habsburg monarchy, yet Austria's strength owed much to its ability to secure allies. Prussia, meanwhile, invested in militarization but maintained a part-time army well into the nineteenth century. Alongside Switzerland, which relied on traditional militia, both states exemplify the longstanding civilian element within German military power. Only after Prussia's unexpected victory over France in 1871 did Germans and outsiders come to believe in a German gift for warfare--a special capacity for high-speed, high-intensity combat that could overcome numerical disadvantage. It took two world wars to expose the fallacy of German military genius. Yet even today, Wilson argues, Germany's strategic position is misunderstood. The country now seen as a bastion of peace spends heavily on defense in comparison to its peers and is deeply invested in less kinetic contemporary forms of coercive power. AJ Woodhams hosts the "War Books" podcast. You can subscribe on Apple here and on Spotify here. War Books is on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/german-studies

    1 hr

  2. JAN 30

    Tom Menger, "The Colonial Way of War: Violence and Colonial Warfare in the British, German and Dutch Empires, c. 1890-1914" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

    The violence of colonial wars between 1890 and 1914 is often thought to have been uniquely shaped by the nature of each of the European empires. The Colonial Way of War: Violence and Colonial Warfare in the British, German and Dutch Empires, c. 1890-1914 (Cambridge UP, 2025) argues instead that these wars' extreme violence was part of a shared 'Colonial Way of War'. Through detailed study of British, German and Dutch colonial wars, Tom Menger reveals the transimperial connectivity of fin-de-siècle colonial violence, including practices of scorched earth and extermination, such as the Herero Genocide (1904-1908). He explores how shared thought and practices arose from exchanges and transfers between actors of different empires, both Europeans and non-Europeans. These transfers can be traced in military manuals and other literature, but most notably in the transimperial mobility of military attachés, regular soldiers, settlers or 'adventurers'. Pioneering in its scope, Menger's work re-thinks the supposed exceptionality of standout cases of colonial violence, and more broadly challenges conceptions we have of imperial connectivity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/german-studies

    1h 2m

  3. JAN 27

    Duy Lap Nguyen, "Walter Benjamin and the Critique of Political Economy: A New Historical Materialism" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

    Walter Benjamin was a German-Jewish intellectual and philosopher associated with the Frankfurt School, who tragically died at 48 years old in 1940 as he fled the advance of the Third Reich on the French-Spanish border. Most writers and critics see Benjamin’s work as fragmented, disjointed, esoteric and dispersed, with no clear narrative or cohesive philosophy. Duy Lap Nguyen, Associate Professor in World Cultures and Literatures at the University of Houston, paints a different picture of Benjamin’s work. In Nguyen’s revealing, latest book, Walter Benjmain and the Critique of Political Economy: A New Historical Materialism (Bloomsbury, 2024), he navigates through Benjamin’s complex organon and meticulously puts together these apparently disperse philosophical threads into a cohesive whole. Nguyen argues that Benjamin’s work demonstrated a holistic philosophical project, and he takes the reader through the latter’s early critical engagement with anarchist praxis and Kantian thought, through to Benjamin’s ‘Marxist’ turn that put him in conversation with the Frankfurt School. The historical materialism of Benjamin, Nguyen carefully demonstrates, was centred on his critique of the ahistorical conceptions of time and history that were the foundation for popular, contemporaneous notions of ‘progress’. Benjamin rallied against neo-Kantians and early twentieth century social democrats alike for their adherence to the ‘infinite struggle’, which posited the necessity for the continued, unachievable pursuit of the realisation of some ethical beyond, abstracted from historical conditions and forces of production, namely capitalism, that made their realisation impossible. Against these ahistorical conceptions, Benjamin’s historical materialism saw modernism as a historically specific form of society, and not the eternal, fate-bound destiny that humanity was entrapped into. Duy Lap Nguyen’s book offers a new insight into not only the crucial philosophy of Walter Benjamin, which demands resurrection in our historical juncture of overlapping crises and fascistic resurgence, but a richly detailed investigation into the ideas, people, and movements that surrounded Benjamin in his time. Nguyen’s book, then, provides a holistic account of Benjamin’s often forgotten philosophical contributions, how they were shaped, and what Benjamin can contribute to the critique of today’s political economy. Elliot Dolan-Evans is a sessional lecturer in law at Monash University and RMIT. His research investigates the political economy of global capitalism, forms of international governance, and questions of war and peace. His first book, Making War Safe for Capitalism: The World Bank, IMF and the Conflict in Ukraine, is now out with Bristol University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/german-studies

    38 min

  4. JAN 26

    Gershom Gorenberg, "War of Shadows: Codebreakers, Spies, and the Secret Struggle to Drive the Nazis from the Middle East" (Public Affairs, 2021)

    As World War II raged in North Africa, General Erwin Rommel was guided by an uncanny sense of his enemies' plans and weaknesses. In the summer of 1942, he led his Axis army swiftly and terrifyingly toward Alexandria, with the goal of overrunning the entire Middle East. Each step was informed by detailed updates on British positions. The Nazis, somehow, had a source for the Allies' greatest secrets. Yet the Axis powers were not the only ones with intelligence. Brilliant Allied cryptographers worked relentlessly at Bletchley Park, breaking down the extraordinarily complex Nazi code Enigma. From decoded German messages, they discovered that the enemy had a wealth of inside information. On the brink of disaster, a fevered and high-stakes search for the source began. In War of Shadows: Codebreakers, Spies, and the Secret Struggle to Drive the Nazis from the Middle East (Public Affairs, 2021), Gershom Gorenberg tells the cinematic story of the race for information in the North African theater of World War II, set against intrigues that spanned the Middle East. Years in the making, this book is a feat of historical research and storytelling, and a rethinking of the popular narrative of the war. It portrays the conflict not as an inevitable clash of heroes and villains but a spiraling series of failures, accidents, and desperate triumphs that decided the fate of the Middle East and quite possibly the outcome of the war. Gershom Gorenberg is a columnist for the Washington Post and a senior correspondent for the American Prospect, as well as an Adjunct Faculty at Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press, 2020). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/german-studies

    1h 2m

  5. JAN 25

    Erika Quinn, "This Horrible Uncertainty: A German Woman Writes War, 1939-1948" (Berghahn Books, 2024)

    Through the diaries and personal papers of a German woman, Vera Conrad, This Horrible Uncertainty: A German Woman Writes War, 1939-1948 (Berghahn Books, 2024) documents her wartime experiences and deepens our understanding of the complex experiences of trauma and grief that National Socialist supporters experienced. Building on scholarship about mourning and widowhood that largely focuses on state policies and public discourses, This Horrible Uncertainty provides an interpretive framework of people’s perceptions of events and their capacity to respond to them. Using a history of emotions approach, Erika Quinn establishes that keeping the diary allowed Conrad to develop different selves in response to her responsibilities, fear, and grief after her husband was declared missing in 1943.Deep Acharya is a PhD student and a George L. Mosse fellow of Modern European Cultural History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison working on the history of fatherhood in 20th century Germany.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/german-studies

    35 min

  6. JAN 21

    Alison Rowlands, "Witchcraft Narratives in Germany: Rothenburg, 1561-1652" (Manchester UP, 2026)

    Alison Rowlands, professor of Early Modern European History at the University of Essex, joins Jana Byars to talk about her classic book, Witchcraft Narratives in Germany, Rothenberg, 1561- 1652, out Manchester UP 2003. This conversation took place on the occasion of a new edition, this time a paperback release, in January 2026 Witchcraft Narratives in Germany: Rothenburg, 1561-1652 (Manchester UP, 2026). This meticulously-researched book relies on copious, detailed archival documents concerning people accused of witchcraft in  the German city of Rothenburg ob der Tauber between 1561 and 1652. This city experienced a very restrained pattern of witch-trials and just one execution for witchcraft during that time, unlike some other places in German lands and Europe more broadly. This book explores the social and psychological conflicts that lay behind the making of accusations and confessions of witchcraft and offers insights into other areas of early modern life, such as experiences of and beliefs about communal conflict, magic, motherhood, childhood and illness. It also includes analysis on the role of gender. Find the open source of the original edition here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/german-studies

    52 min

  7. JAN 17

    Mark Christian Thompson, "Phenomenal Blackness: Black Power, Philosophy, and Theory" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

    Mark Christian Thompson's book, Phenomenal Blackness: Black Power, Philosophy, and Theory (University of Chicago Press, 2022) examines the changing interdisciplinary investments of key mid-century African American writers and thinkers, showing how their investments in sociology and anthropology gave way to a growing interest in German philosophy and critical theory by the 1960s. Thompson analyzes this shift in intellectual focus across the post-war decades, pinpointing its clearest expression in Amiri Baraka's writings on jazz and blues, in which he insisted on philosophy as the critical means by which to grasp African American expressive culture. More sociologically oriented thinkers, such as W. E. B. Du Bois, had understood blackness as a singular set of socio-historical characteristics. In contrast, writers such as Baraka, James Baldwin, Angela Y. Davis, Eldridge Cleaver, and Malcolm X were variously drawn to notions of an African essence, an ontology of Black being. For them, the work of Adorno, Habermas, Marcuse, and German thinkers was a vital resource, allowing for continued cultural-materialist analysis while accommodating the hermeneutical aspects of African American religious thought. Mark Christian Thompson argues that these efforts to reimagine Black singularity led to a phenomenological understanding of blackness--a "Black aesthetic dimension" wherein aspirational models for Black liberation might emerge. Brittney Edmonds is an Assistant Professor of Afro-American Studies at UW-Madison. I specialize in 20th and 21st century African American Literature and Culture with a special interest in Black Humor Studies. Read more about my work at brittneymichelleedmonds.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/german-studies

    1h 2m

  8. JAN 13

    Dagmar Herzog, "The New Fascist Body" (Wirklichkeit Books, 2025)

    The success of new far-right movements cannot be explained by fear or rage alone – the pleasures of aggression and violence are just as essential. As such, racism is particularly intense when it is erotically charged, migration presenting as a sexual threat to white women being one of many examples. Germany’s strikingly successful right-wing political party Alternative für Deutschland is, according to the historian Dagmar Herzog, characterized by this “sexy racism,” with its second main feature being that of an obsessive hostility to disability – both elements resonating strongly with Nazism. In The New Fascist Body, Herzog connects her analysis of fascism’s libidinous energy with its animus against bodies perceived as imperfect. Only by studying the emotional and intellectual worlds of past fascisms can we understand and combat their current manifestations. The book features an afterword by Alberto Toscano, author of Late Fascism: Race, Capitalism and the Politics of Crisis (Verso 2023). Lisa Schmidt-Herzog is a Berlin-based writer and researcher. Her academic work focuses on the biopolitics of medical standardization and the influence of cultural and ethico-political norms on mental health and illness. She is interested in the historicity of scientific concepts and subject-centered approaches to health and illness, and examines the radical thought of theorists and practitioners such as Georges Canguilhem, Frantz Fanon, and Erich Wulff. For NBN’s Critical Theory channel, she focuses on medical pluralism, the relationship between health and resistance, and the pragmatics of healing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/german-studies

    1h 5m
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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/german-studies

Information

  • Creator
    Marshall Poe
  • Years Active
    2013 - 2026
  • Episodes
    933
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © New Books Network
  • Show Website
    New Books in German Studies

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