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Celebrating 30 Years of Berghahn Books

Notable publications over the last 30 years

We are proud of each title and every series that we have published over the past 30 years. What follows is a small selection of some highlights that have marked our journey to today, especially in the early years:

The nineties

The very first titles are published

In September 1994, the first two titles are published to wide acclaim.

Imperial Germany not only lands a coveted New York Times book review and is named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year.

The first series are launched

International Political Currents

In association with the Washington Office of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, our first series, International Political Currents, is launched to address major international economic, political and cultural issues in Germany.

Modern German Studies

In partnership with the German Studies Association, the Modern German Studies series is launched and marks the beginning of a long-standing and close collaboration between Berghahn Books and the GSA.

Forced Migration

A cornerstone of our anthropology list, specifically with a focus on refugee studies, our collaboration with the Refugee Studies Centre at the University of Oxford results in the launch on a ground-breaking series in Forced Migration.

Anthropology of Food & Nutrition

More recently a recognized field of study in anthropology, the Anthropology of Food & Nutrition series was ahead of its time and published some of the earliest works on this subfield of the anthropology discipline.

New Directions in Anthropology

Some of the earliest ethnographic studies of tourism are published as part of our New Directions in Anthropology series.

Austrian and Habsburg Studies

Published in association with the Center for Austrian Studies at the University of Minnesota, one of the oldest and best-known research centers on Central Europe, the Austrian and Habsburg Studiess series publishes volumes that reflect the rich, complex, and enduring legacy of this European region.

War & Genocide

With an aim to study genocide within the broader framework of social and cultural history, our War & Genocide series was launched and has since been praised as having "immeasurably enriched the English-language scholarship available to scholars and students of genocide and, in particular, the Holocaust."

Methodology & History in Anthropology

In partnership with the Institute of Social & Cultural Anthropology at Oxford University, the series Methodology & History in Anthropology was launched to explore the interrelationship between anthropology and other academic fields.

Notable titles

The History of the Armenian Genocide

A seminal work on the Armenian genocide, Vahakn N. Dadrian's The History of the Armenian Genocide is published in 1995 and reissued in a new paperback edition in 2003 and remains a cornerstone on the subject to this day.

Shamanism

Shamanism: Traditional and Contemporary Approaches to the Mastery of Spirits and Healing by Merete Demant Jakobsen†

DEFA: East German Cinema 1946-1992

The first volume in English to trace the development of the state-sponsored Deutsche Film Anstalt (DEFA), which was primarily responsible for film production in the former GDR from 1946, ceasing to exist in 1992. DEFA: East German Cinema 1946-1992, edited by Seán Allan and John Sandford

German History 1789-1871

A leading textbook on German History, German History 1789-1871: From the Holy Roman Empire to the Bismarckian Reich by Eric Dorn Brose was released to round out our modern German textbook list.

Courageous Hearts

Courageous Hearts: Women and the Anti-Hitler Plot of 1944 by Dorothee von Meding gives voice to the wives whose roles have otherwise largely been forgotten in the commemorations now in place for the men who paid gruesomely with the lives in the failed 20 July plot.

History of the Low Countries

Edited by J. C. H. Blom and E. Lamberts, History of the Low Countries, is the first single-volume history available in English of the region from the Roman times to the present.

Michael Haneke's Cinema

The same year that the 2009 Cannes Palme d'Or winner is announced as Michael Haneke, Michael Haneke's Cinema is released to critical acclaim and short-listed for numerous awards in addition to being nominated as Sight & Sound Magazine's Book of the Month on release.

Engendering Forced Migration

Filling a gap in migration studies that otherwise paid inadequate attention to the highly gendered forces that frame and affect the global flow of forced migrants, Engendering Forced Migration, offered a vital contribution to the field.

Women of Prague

Offering vivid and often moving portraits of the notable Women of Prague, this beautifully written and personal volume corrects the imbalance of historiography when it comes to appreciating the literary legacy of this region.

Journals

Our first journals are launched!

The 2000s

Series

EASA Series

Berghahn's commitment to anthropology was recognized through the partnership forged with the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA), which resulted in the long-running EASA book series.

Margaret Mead

Known best for her work in the South Pacific, Margaret Mead's extensive studies closer to home were little known before the launch of this series made available those works for the first time: Margaret Mead: The Study of Contemporary Western Culture.

Vermont Studies on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust

Reflecting the scholarly activity of UVM's Miller Center for Holocaust Studies and the legacy of Raul Hilberg, the Vermont Studies on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust is launched.

The anthropology list expands into medical anthropology with two ground-breaking series: Epistemologies of Healing and Fertility, Reproduction and Sexuality.

Dislocations

Dislocations is launched to provide a forum for politically engaged, ethnographically informed, and theoretically incisive responses to the immense dislocations and suffering caused by neo-liberal globalization.

Making Sense of History

Bridging the gap between historical theory and the study of historical memory, Making Sense of History adds new dimensions to our history list.

Studies in German History

Studies in German History is launched and published in close collaboration with the German Historical Institute, Washington D.C. This series included a beautiful full-color large format volume on Max Liebermann.

Studies in British and Imperial History

Our steadfast ties with the German Historical Institute lead to a later series, Studies in British and Imperial History, this time with the Institute in London.

Environmental Anthropology and Ethnobiology

Our expansion into Environment studies develop from our anthropology list, which launches the new series, Environmental Anthropology and Ethnobiology

Two new series add a new geographical focus of our list: Asia-Pacific Studies: Past and Present and Asian Anthropologies.

New German Historical Perspectives

Published in partnership with St. Antony's College, University of Oxford, New German Historical Perspectives showcases pioneering new work by leading German historians on a range of topics concerning the history of modern Germany and Europe.

Film Europa

Our film list was propelled by the launch of Film Europa, which was praised as having "a huge impact on the field."

Notable titles

UNESCO

In 2003, Berghahn together with our long-time designer, partnered with the Unesco to publish the World Water Report. A massive undertaking, the publication was a joint report by the twenty-three United Nations agencies and featured a foreword by then Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi A. Annan. A follow-up edition of the same magnitude was published a few years later.

Museums and Diversity

The water reports were the first full-color books we published, and were followed a few years later by titles released in our Museums and Diversity series, including Museums, the Media and Refugees, which won a print prize in 2008 for its innovation in digital color printing.

Working for the Enemy

Working for the Enemy: Ford, General Motors, and Forced Labor in Germany during the Second World War, by Reinhold Billstein, Karola Fings, Anita Kugler and Nicholas Levis is awarded Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year.

Polish National Cinema

Marek Haltof's seminal volume is the first comprehensive English-language study of Polish cinema, providing a much-needed survey of one of Europe's most distinguished—yet unjustly neglected—film cultures: Polish National Cinema.

Heirs of the Greek Catastrophe

To mark the 75th anniversary of the Asia Minor catastrophe, the Heirs of the Greek Catastrophe is released in paperback and remains the definitive study to this day.

Rethinking Migration

Rethinking Migration: New Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives, edited by Alejandro Portes and Josh DeWind contributed an important sociological dimension to our thriving migration studies list.

German Scholars & Ethnic Cleansing, 1919-1945

Edited by Ingo Haar and Michael Fahlbusch, with a Foreword by Georg G. Iggers†, German Scholars & Ethnic Cleansing, 1919-1945 is recognized as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year.

Escape from Hell

Alfred Wetzler† is one of the few who managed to escape from Auschwitz and took with him damning evidence to expose the horrors they had left behind. This is his story: Escape from Hell: The True Story of the Auschwitz Protocol.

Empire, Colony, Genocide

Setting "new standards for the history of colonialism and genocide" Empire, Colony, Genocide is published to wide acclaim culminating with the First Prize award for non-European History from H-Soz-und-Kult.

Journals

Our list grows further!

In addition, for an unprecedented two years in a row, Berghahn Journals was awarded the AAP/PSP Prose Award for Best New Journal in the Social Sciences & Humanities. In 2008 for Projections, followed in 2009 by Girlhood Studies.

The 2010s

Series

Spektrum

A new collaboration with the German Studies Association, one of our earliest publishing partners, leads to the launch of the Spektrum: Publications of the German Studies Association series.

WYSE Series

Published in association with the renowned Cambridge Department of Social Anthropology, home to the prestigious Wyse chair, the WYSE Series in Social Anthropology is launched to focus on key interventions in Social Anthropology.

Environment in History

In collaboration with the European Society for Environmental History and the Rachel Carson Center, an international series on Environment in History is launched to showcase high-quality research in environmental history and cognate disciplines in the social and natural sciences.

Notable titles

Policy Worlds

Praised as "an outstanding contribution to the anthropological understanding of public policy" Policy Worlds, edited by Sue Wright and Cris Shore, is published.

Ethnography & the Corporate Encounter

A lead title in a pioneering series on the applications of anthropology outside of academia is published: Ethnography & the Corporate Encounter.

Béla Balázs

Published for the first time in full English translation, Béla Balázs' two works, Visible Man (1924) and The Spirit of Film (1930) introduce film scholars to this film theorist's revolutionary masterpieces.

Hitler's Plans for Global Domination

True to our early remit of realizing the English-language publication of seminal German-language texts, Hitler's Plans for Global Domination is published and welcomed by historians.

Dance and Performance Studies

As a great example of the strength of a series devoted to Dance and Performance Studies, Dancing Cultures brings us an anthropology of dance and its role as tourist spectacle.

Places of Pain

Berghahn's titles were recognized by the AAP/PSP Prose Awards in recent years: In 2013, Places of Pain, received an Honorable Mention in the Archaeology & Anthropology section.

AAP/PSP Prose Awards

In 2016, European Products would win the Anthropology category, followed in 2017 by Enduring Uncertainty, which also won in this category.

Journals

Our list grows further!

Our journals program also launches Advances in Research.

Open Access

In 2016 we published our first open access titles with a collection of titles released as part of the Knowledge Unlatched Select package with other open access titles enabled by institutional funding.

Present day

The above list is by no means exhaustive and simply offers a few highlights from a diverse spectrum of disciplines that span regional boundaries and incorporate theory as well as practice.

Although anthropology and history – rooted in European regions – are the two foundational specialties of our publishing program, our program has diversified over the years, growing organically out of these two cornerstone disciplines, not only in scope, but in geographical region.

For instance, our film list, grew from our German studies list under which our first film books were published in German film, but is now more international, while still periodically returns to its roots with series like the newly launched Film and the Global Cold War.

Close to home, our gender studies list reflects our underlying (and real-world experience as a women-run firm) belief in the importance of scholarship that tackles gender injustice in the quest for a more equitable and humane world. We were thrilled to recently publish a book celebrating the publishing legacy of other women in our profession in addition to supporting to the activism agenda of girlhood studies through the launch of this new series.

Our environmental studies list finds its roots in our anthropology of environment titles, but has broadened to tackle the contexts of conversation, natural disasters, and climate change from historical as well as ethnographically informed policy perspectives – unfortunately ever timely topics that show little sign of waning.

Our recently established list for Mobility studies brings together long-running collections of titles from migration and refugee studies with studies of tourism – all unified by the movement of people, whether voluntary or forced, for pleasure or in pain. All crucial for understanding how changes in time and place shape the human experience.

Last, but not least, our newest addition to our publishing program is our archaeology list, which delves into this fascinating and diverse field that tackles everything from video games to witchcraft to extraterrestrials(!). New titles commissioned by our editor Caryn Berg, are complemented by the 2018 acquisition of the distinguished imprint International Monographs in Prehistory.

Stay tuned for the latest releases across our lists – sign up for email notifications or follow us on social media across Twitter (also Anthro, History, and Film), Facebook, and even Tumblr.

You can find out more about us on our website, including contact details or how to publish with Berghahn Books.

We look forward to staying in touch!