Review about "Hot Books in the Cold War"

"Welcome to the Iron Curtain region in the Cold War. And the hero of the story, according to Alfred A. Reisch’s book 'Hot Books in the Cold War?' The CIA. This book is a timely reminder in an age in which Americans have come to fear government intrusion into our intellectual, professional, and personal lives and in which we read about the massive surveillance programs of the National Security Agency (NSA) that at one time U.S. government agencies like the CIA were conduits of ideas deemed dangerous by governments abroad and that intellectuals and students were the beneficiaries of its largesse.'
http://criticalmargins.com/2013/08/22/review-hot-books-in-the-cold-war/

Two new releases from CEU Press: 

Demographic Avant-Garde. Jews in Bohemia between the Enlightenment and the Shoah 

by
Jana Vobecká (researcher at the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital (IIASA, VID/ÖAW, WU), Vienna Institute of Demography, Austrian Academy of Sciences) 

 

Transition in Post-Soviet Art. The Collective Actions Group Before and After 1989

by 

Octavian Esanu (founding director of the Soros Center for Contemporary Art, Chisinau (Moldova) and has curated for art institutions in Eastern and Western Europe. Currently he is Curator at the American University of Beirut, running two art spaces dedicated to Middle Eastern and international modern and contemporary art)

Foreword by Boris Groys.

2013 Fall/Winter

Our newest catalog is now available from our website. If you wish to receive a print copy, please write to ceupress@ceu.hu.

Giordano Bruno's Enlightenment

Some of the world’s most eminent researchers on Bruno offer an exhaustive overview of the state-of-theart research on his work, discussing Bruno’s methodological procedures, his epistemic and literary practices, his natural philosophy, or his role as theologian and metaphysic at the cutting-edge of their disciplines. Short texts by Bruno illustrate the reasoning of the contributions. The book also reflects aspects of Bruno’s reception in the past and today, inside and outside academia.

Learning to See Invisible Children

The volume--published by the Open Society Foundations and distributed by CEU Press--contains six case studies that address a significant aspect or specific phenomenon in the local context of inclusive education or social inclusion in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. The cases raise a number of questions relating to the purpose and nature of schooling, about who should have access to schools and how such access might be negotiated. These cases also ask questions about the respective roles of policy, parents, civic society, advocacy groups, professionals, NGOs, and government agencies. It considers how notions of disability are constructed in the region. In particular it looks at some of the ways in which the Soviet legacy of defectology still informs policy and practice today.

Studies on Charms and Charmings in Europe

The research of the folklore genre of charms became extremely dynamic around the turn of the millennium. A number of academic disciplines allied themselves to explore manuscripts healing texts and other textual relics of verbal magic from antiquity and the middle ages. Studying this corpus has shed light on a number of previously unexplored aspects of Eurasian cultures. The authors of the twelve essays in the book, covering a wide geographical and thematic range, include representatives of European ethnology and folklore studies, contemporary and historical anthropology, as well as linguistics, the study of Classical Antiquity, mediaeval studies, Byzantine studies, Russian and Baltic studies. The essays reflect the rich textual tradition of archives, monasteries and literary sources, as well as the texts amassed in the folklore archives or those still accessible through field work in many rural areas of Europe and known from the living practice of lay specialists of magic and healers in local communities, and even of priests.

For more information visit: http://www.ceupress.com/books/html/PowerOfWords.htm

CEU Press on BiblioRossica

The first batch of CEU Press titles are now available through BiblioRossica, a portal for academics and scholars that offers expertly selected collections devoted to the most relevant areas of modern Russian, Jewish, Eastern European and Eurasian humanities: http://www.bibliorossica.com/index.html

New Release: The Village and the Class War

An anti-kulak campaign started in the Estonian countryside after the Second World War in connection to collectivisation. What happened in rural society when this wave of persecution was launched? How did the Communist Party representatives, local councils, farm population, the accused and the not yet accused, react? In a society with small social differentiation and few communist supporters, the campaign was fi rst
of all puzzling to everybody concerned. In the wake of a dramatic war with three consecutive occupations, another drama was played out in the peaceful rural landscape. How it was handled and how it fi nally turned out is the topic of this book. Based on local archives where documents are both abundant and reticent, the roles of structures and actors are explored.

Anu Mai Kõll, Professor Emerita of Baltic History, director of the Centre for Baltic and East European Studies at Södertörn University, Sweden

"Kõll’s study is a significant leap forward in understanding postwar Baltic history. While up to today the ordinary participators in terror have either been seen as ideologically driven traitors or as mere objects of the communist leadership, Kõll presents them as subjects in their own right. Thanks to this effort, history of Stalinist terror in the Baltic States can finally be related to other new explorations on local participation in state violence in twentieth-century Europe."—David Feest, Georg-August-University, Göttingen, Germany

Hot Books in the Cold War

Central European University Press cordially invites you to the book launch of

HOT BOOKS IN THE COLD WAR
The CIA-Funded Secret Western Book Distribution Program Behind the Iron Curtain

by Alfred A. Reisch

 a political scientist, specializing in international relations, diplomatic and Cold War history, foreign, military, national security, and minority affairs. He was Senior Political Analyst with Radio Free Europe in New York and Head of RFE´s Hungarian Research and Evaluation Section in Munich, Germany

The book will be introduced by:

Csaba Békés

Senior Research Fellow, Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Founding Director, Cold War History Research Center, Budapest
Associate Professor, Corvinus University of Budapest, Institute of
International Studies

When: 5 pm, Tuesday, 26 March, 2013
Where: Open Society Archives, Arany János utca 32, 1051 Budapest

Lessons from the History of the Euro

We have been very busy since the beginning of this year and, as a result, now we have one or two books coming out every week. This week we are very proud to present Institutional Trust and Economic Policy. Lessons from the History of the Euro by a CEU alumna, Dóra Györffy, who is currently associate professor at Péter Pázmány Catholic University, Hungary.

New Books This Week

We have two brand new publications this week. The first one is Rural Unrest during the First Russian Revolution. Kursk Province , 1905–1906 by Burton R. Miller, a research analyst living in New York. This book is an important work, unique in many ways, of micro-social history with large implications for the history of Russia and comparative studies of peasant rebellions.

The second book, is a collection of articles focusing on key concepts shaping Romania's socio-political development in the modern period, such as: politics, democracy, Europe, liberal/liberalism, nation, people, national character, national specificity education, transition, censorship, totalitarianism, patriotism, etc.

 

The Chronicle on writing a good book proposal

Very interesting read from Rachel Toor, really resonates with what we have been talking about recently, especially the part about how difficult it is for most authors to provide a cover-copy-length description let alone a one- or two-sentence pitch: The Reality of Writing a Good Book Proposal

Invitation to booklaunch (in Hungarian)

Let's get started

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New Paperback

Is secularization a useful concept in understanding the long-term dynamics of religiosity in Eastern Europe? Is the picture of oppression and resistance an accurate way to characterize religious life under communism, or did Christians and communists find ways to co-exist on the local level prior to 1989? And what role did Christians actually play in dissident movements under communism? Perhaps most important is the question: what does the study of Eastern Europe contribute to the broader study of modern Christian history, and what can we learn from the interpretative problems that arise, uniquely, from this region?

"A well-crafted and pathbreaking volume."--Slavic Review
 
"This book deserves a wide readership; it will benefit advanced undergraduates as well as specialists in the field. Anyone interested in approaching the complex, intertwined history of Christianity, modernity, and Eastern Europe should read this volume."--H-Net/Habsburg

"The high standard of historical scholarship, the variety of cases, and its interdisciplinary emphasis make the volume quite rewarding for the academic and lay reader alike." - Austrian History Yearbook