Europe has a long history of state-led population displacement on ethnic grounds. The nationalist argument of ethnic homogeneity has been a crucial factor in the mapping of the continent. At no time has this been more the case than during and after the Second World War. Both under the aggressive expansionism of the Third Reich and after Germany's defeat, millions were brutally forced out of their homelands. Presenting a history from the top as well as the bottom, People on the Move reconst...

After World War II, some 12 million Germans, 3 million Poles and Ukrainians, and tens of thousands of Hungarians were expelled from their homes and forced to migrate to their supposed countries of origin. Using freshly available materials from Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, Czechoslovak, German, British, and American archives, the contributors to this book provide a sweeping, detailed account of the turmoil caused by the huge wave of forced migration during the nascent Cold War. The book also...

This book analyzes the history of the black market in Poland before the 1940s and the development of black-market phenomena in post-war Poland. The author evaluates the interrelation between black-market phenomena and historical and geographical conditions. At first, the black market stabilized the system by making it more flexible and creating a margin of freedom, albeit in the short term. In the long run, the informal economic activities of the people ran counter to and undermined the of...

**WINNER OF THE 2026 PULITZER PRIZE FOR OPINION WRITINGThe National Book Award winner's biography of a ruthless man's ascent to near-absolute power.**“In a country where journalists critical of the government have a way of meeting untimely deaths, Gessen has shown remarkable courage in researching and writing this unflinching indictment of the most powerful man in Russia.” —The Wall Street Journal“Thanks to fearless reporting and ac...

Now available in a single, abridged paperback, Ian Kershaw's Hitler is the definitive biography of the Nazi leader.Ian Kershaw's two volume biography, Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris and Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis, was greeted with universal acclaim as the essential work on one of the most malign figures in history, from his earliest origins to the final days of the Second World War.Now this landmark historical work is available in one si...

One of the country’s most distinguished writers and publishers returns to her roots to explore the consequences of democracy in the former Habsburg lands.In 1989 the Berlin Wall was dismantled. Communism gave way to democracy. Since that time the former borderlands of the long defunct Hapsburg Empire and the more recently dispersed Soviet Empire have been trying to invent their own versions of democracy and market-driven economics. But these experiments have led to a widening gap b...

From a National Jewish Book Award–winning author: The "revelatory and shocking" investigation into the CIA's liberation of Nazi war criminals ( Kirkus Reviews).How did Gen, Karl Wolff, one of the highest-ranking members of the Nazi Party's Waffen-SS, who personally oversaw the deportation of three hundred thousand Jews to the Treblinka extermination camps, escape prosecution at the Nuremberg trials? As revealed in this groundbreaking investigation—culled fr...

As the world struggles to confront a bolder Russia, the importance of understanding the formidable and ambitious Vladimir Putin has never been greater. This gripping narrative of Putin's rise to power recounts Putin's origins—from his childhood of abject poverty in Leningrad to his ascent through the ranks of the KGB, and his eventual consolidation of rule in the Kremlin.On the one hand, Putin's many domestic reforms—from tax cuts to an expansion of property rights...

A brilliant investigation into the most powerful institution you’ve never heard of.**“An absorbing and thorough examination.” —**ReutersThe Bank for International Settlements is the bank for central banks. It is one of the world’s most secretive—and most influential—global financial institutions.Created by the governors of the Bank of England and the Reichsbank in 1930 and protected by an international treaty, the BIS and i...

Twenty years ago, the Berlin Wall fell. In one of modern history’s most miraculous occurrences, communism imploded–and not with a bang, but with a whimper. Now two of the foremost scholars of East European and Soviet affairs, Stephen Kotkin and Jan T. Gross, drawing upon two decades of reflection, revisit this crash. In a crisp, concise, unsentimental narrative, they employ three case studies–East Germany, Romania, and Poland–to illuminate what led Communist regimes to surrender, or to be ...

The award-winning history of 12 million German-speaking civilians in Europe who were driven from their homes after WWII: "a major achievement" ( New Republic).Immediately after the Second World War, the victorious Allies authorized the forced relocation of ethnic Germans from their homes across central and southern Europe to Germany. The numbers were almost unimaginable: between 12 and 14 million civilians, most of them women and children. And the losses we...

Here is a pioneering account of everyday life under Stalin, written by one of our foremost authorities on modern Russian history. Focusing on urban areas in the 1930s, Sheila Fitzpatrick shows that with the adoption of collectivization and the first Five-Year Plan, everyday life was utterly transformed. With the abolition of the market, shortages of food, clothing, and all kinds of consumer goods became endemic. As peasants fled the collectivized villages, major cities were soon in the gri...