In the last, rootless decade families, neighborhoods, and communities have disintegrated in the face of gripping social, economic, and technological changes. Th is process has had mixed results. On the positive side, it has produced a mobile, volatile, and dynamic society in the United States that is perhaps more open, just, and creative than ever before. On the negative side, it has dissolved the glue that bound our society together and has destroyed many of the myths, symbols, values, an...

Pole/Jew brings together a group of scholars—about half of them Jewish, about half of them ethnic Poles—from the United States, Poland, the United Kingdom, and Canada and enlists their diverse methodological and generational perspectives to push debates over Polish-Jewish relations beyond entrenched and reductive positions. At the core of the volume are the following questions:–What impact has the Holocaust had on Polish history and Polish literature?–How has the Ho...

Though often overlooked in conventional accounts, women with myriad backgrounds and countless talents have made an impact on Polish and Polish American history. John J. Bukowczyk gathers articles from the journals Polish Review and Polish American Studies to offer a fascinating cross-section of readings about the lives and experiences of these women. The first section examines queens and aristocrats during the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but also looks at the life of the first Polish f...

The influence of intellectuals is not only greater than in previous eras but also takes a very different form from that envisioned by those like Machiavelli and others who have wanted to directly influence rulers. It has not been by shaping the opinions or directing the actions of the holders of power that modern intellectuals have most influenced the course of events, but by shaping public opinion in ways that affect the actions of power holders in democratic societies, whether or not tho...

An astonishing and heartbreaking study of the Polish Holocaust survivors who returned home only to face continued violence and anti-Semitism at the hands of their neighbors“[Fear] culminates in so keen a shock that even a student of the Jewish tragedy during World War II cannot fail to feel it.”—Elie WieselFINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK W...

In Wives, Mothers, and the Red Menace, Mary Brennan examines conservative women's anti-communist activism in the years immediately after World War II.Brennan details the actions and experiences of prominent anti-communists Jean Kerr McCarthy, Margaret Chase Smith, Freda Utley, Doloris Thauwald Bridges, Elizabeth Churchill Brown, and Phyllis Stewart Schlafly. She describes the Cold War context in which these women functioned and the ways in which women saw communism as a ve...

Antisemitism, as hatred of Jews and Judaism, has been a central problem of Western civilization for millennia, and its history continues to invite debate. This Very Short Introduction untangles the history of the phenomenon, from ancient religious conflict to 'new' antisemitism in the 21st century. Steven Beller reveals how Antisemitism grew as a political and ideological movement in the 19th century, how it reached its dark apogee in the worst genocide in modern history - the Hol...

“Fascists,” “Brownshirts,” “jackbooted stormtroopers”—such are the insults typically hurled at conservatives by their liberal opponents. Calling someone a fascist is the fastest way to shut them up, defining their views as beyond the political pale. But who are the real fascists in our midst?Liberal Fascism offers a startling new perspective on the theories and practices that define fascist politics. Replacing conveniently manufactured myths with surprising and enlightenin...

This new exploration of Marx as a Jewish thinker presents "a perceptive and fair-minded corrective to superficial treatments" of his life and work (Jonathan Rose, Wall Street Journal).A philosopher, historian, sociologist, economist, current affairs journalist, and editor, Karl Marx was one of the most influential and revolutionary thinkers of modern history. But he is rarely thought of as a Jewish thinker, and his Jewish background is either overlooked or ...

The word ‘fascism’ sometimes appears to have become a catch-all term of abuse, applicable to anyone on the political right, from Hitler to Donald Trump and from Putin to Thatcher. While some argue that it lacks any distinctive conceptual meaning at all, others have supplied highly elaborate definitions of its ‘essential’ features. It is therefore a concept that presents unique challenges for any student of political theory or history.In this accessible book, Roger Griffin, one of t...

**The classic work on how different ethnic groups have economically, socially, and educationally adapted to American society“At once useful as a concise history of major ethnic groups and significant as a quiet but powerful attack on liberal beliefs about minorities, racism, segregation, and affirmative action.” —New York Times**A distinguished economist traces the history of nine American ethnic groups—the Irish, Germans, Jews, Italians, Chinese, Japanese, Blacks,...

Essays on how chaos, totalitarianism, and trauma have shaped Ukraine's culture: "A milestone of the scholarship about Eastern European politics of memory." —Wulf Kansteiner, Aarhus UniversityIn a century marked by totalitarian regimes, genocide, mass migrations, and shifting borders, the concept of memory in Eastern Europe is often synonymous with notions of trauma. In Ukraine, memory mechanisms were disrupted by political systems seeking to repress and control the ...