The Second World War remains today the most seismic political event of the past hundred years, an unimaginable unpheaval that impacted upon every country on earth and is fully ingrained in the consciousness of the world's citizens. Traditional narratives of the conflict are entrenched to such a degree that new research takes on an ever important role in helping us make sense of World War II. Aiming to bring to light the results of new archival research and exploring notions of memory, propaganda, genocide, empire and culture, Routledge Studies in Second World War History sheds new light on the causes, events and legacy of global war.
By Amy Simon
June 16, 2023
This book uses an empathic reading of Yiddish diarists’ feelings, evaluations, and assessments about persecutors in the Warsaw, Lodz, and Vilna ghettos to present an emotional history of persecution in the Nazi ghettos. It re-centers the daily experiences of psychological and physical violence ...
By David Patterson
May 31, 2023
Shoah and Torah systematically takes up the task of reading the Shoah through the lens of the Torah and the Torah through the lens of the Shoah.The investigation rests upon (1) the metaphysical standing that the Nazis ascribed to the Torah, (2) the obliteration of the Torah in the extermination of ...
By Pascal Lottaz, Ingemar Ottosson
May 31, 2023
We thank Ekman & Co AB and Gadelius Holding Ltd for their kind and generous support, making this research available online for free. Lottaz and Ottosson explore the intricate relationship between neutral Sweden and Imperial Japan during the latter’s 15 years of warfare in Asia and in the ...
By Dean J. Guarnaschelli
May 31, 2023
This study investigates the relationship between Lothar-Günther Buchheim (1918-2007), his bestselling 1973 novel Das Boot (The Boat), and West Germany’s Vergangenheitsbewältigung. As a war reporter during the Battle of the Atlantic, Buchheim benefitted from distinct privileges, yet he was never in ...
By Doreen Pastor
May 31, 2023
This book considers tourism to memorial sites from a visitor’s point of view, challenging established theories in tourism and memory studies by critically appraising Germany’s often celebrated memory culture. Based on visitor observations and exit interviews, this book examines how domestic and ...
By Kamila Baraniecka-Olszewska
May 31, 2023
This book explores the consequences of the latest political shifts in Central Eastern Europe: the rise of right-wing parties and, among other things, politics becoming more invested in history. These phenomena coincide and overlap with the democratisation of history by turning the past into a hot ...
By Jesús Casquete
May 05, 2023
To disentangle the National Socialists’ path to power in Germany, one must attend to the discursive strategies and liturgical practices employed by its emocrats, or manipulators of emotions. The apotheosis of martyrdom in the National Socialist propaganda template is far from being a marginal ...
Edited
By Ashley Jackson
April 28, 2023
This collection of essays, written by authors of different nationalities, explores the experiences of the countries that were not numbered among the Second World War’s major belligerents, including colonies, 'lesser' powers, and neutral nation states. The story of the war is often dominated by the...
By Matthew Evangelista
December 22, 2022
Tens of thousands of Italian civilians perished in the Allied bombing raids of World War II. More of them died after the Armistice of September 1943 than before, when the air attacks were intended to induce Italy’s surrender. Allied Air Attacks and Civilian Harm in Italy, 1940–1945 addresses this ...
By Richard Carrier
September 26, 2022
This book analyses why the Italian army failed to defeat its Greek opponent between October 1940 and April 1941. It thoroughly examines the multiple forms of ineffectiveness that plagued the political leadership as well as the military organisation. Mussolini’s aggression of Greece ranks among the ...
By Silvia Tarabini Fracapane
August 01, 2022
Based on never previously explored personal accounts and archival documentation, this book examines life and death in the Theresienstadt ghetto, seen through the eyes of the Jewish victims from Denmark. "How was it in Theresienstadt?" Thus asked Johan Grün rhetorically when he, in July 1945, ...
By Pothiti Hantzaroula
May 30, 2022
A historical investigation of children’s memory of the Holocaust in Greece illustrates that age, generation and geographical background shaped postwar Jewish identities. The examination of children’s narratives deposited in the era of digital archives enables an understanding of the age-specific ...