Vladimir Putin's image functions as a political talisman far outside of the borders of his own country. Studying material objects, fan fiction, and digital media, Putin Kitsch in America traces the satirical uses of Putin's public persona and how he stands as a foil for other world leaders.Uncovering a wide variety of material culture - satirical, scatological, even risqué - made possible by new print-on-demand technologies, Alison Rowley argues that the internet is crucia...

Vladimir Putin's image functions as a political talisman far outside of the borders of his own country. Studying material objects, fan fiction, and digital media, Putin Kitsch in America traces the satirical uses of Putin's public persona and how he stands as a foil for other world leaders.Uncovering a wide variety of material culture - satirical, scatological, even risqué - made possible by new print-on-demand technologies, Alison Rowley argues that the internet is crucia...

During the fin-de-siècle and early revolutionary eras, picture postcards were an important medium of communication for Russians of all backgrounds. In Open Letters, the most comprehensive study of Russian picture postcards to date, Alison Rowley uses this medium to explore a variety of aspects of Russian popular culture. The book is lavishly illustrated with more than 130 images, most of which have never been published before.Through her examinations of postcards, Rowley a...

**A profound, important book, a moving personal detective story and an uncovering of secret pasts, set in Europe’s center, the city of bright colors—Lviv, Ukraine, dividing east from west, north from south, in what had been the Austro-Hungarian Empire.A book that explores the development of the world-changing legal concepts of “genocide” and “crimes against humanity” that came about as a result of the unprecedented atrocities of Hitler’s Third Reich.**It is also a spellbind...

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...

Eric Hobsbawm, who passed away in 2012, was one of the most brilliant and original historians of our age. Through his work, he observed the great twentieth-century confrontation between bourgeois fin de siècle culture and myriad new movements and ideologies, from communism and extreme nationalism to Dadaism to the emergence of information technology. In Fractured Times, Hobsbawm, with characteristic verve, unpacks a century of cultural fragmentation.Hobsbawm examines the c...

The changes in Polish life, culture, economics, and development have been remarkable. And the pace of change shows little sign of abating. Through twenty-five years of post-Communist transformation and ten years as a member of the European Union, some Polish cities, like Warsaw, KrakÓw, Poznan, and Wroclaw, have experienced an economic renaissance thanks largely to direct foreign investment, EU funds, and an influx of tourists. Much of the countryside, and cities like LÓdz and Lublin, howe...

Eric Hobsbawm is considered by many to be our greatest living historian. Robert Heilbroner, writing about Hobsbawm’s The Age of Extremes 1914-1991 said, “I know of no other account that sheds as much light on what is now behind us, and thereby casts so much illumination on our possible futures.” Skeptical, endlessly curious, and almost contemporary with the terrible “short century” which is the subject of Age of Extremes, his most widely read book, Hobsbaw...

When the Great War ended in 1918, the West was broken. Religious faith, patriotism, and the belief in human progress had all been called into question by the mass carnage experienced by both sides. Shell shocked and traumatized, the West faced a world it no longer recognized: the old order had collapsed, replaced by an age of machines. The world hurtled forward on gears and crankshafts, and terrifying new ideologies arose from the wreckage of past belief.In Fracture, criti...

This illustrated Travel Guide is a part of the Mobi Sights series, our concise guides that only feature the most essential information on city attractions. This guide is designed for optimal navigation on eReaders, smartphones, and other mobile electronic devices. Inside you will find a locator map and a list of top attractions linked to individual articles. Addresses, telephones, hours of operation and admissions information are included.Please search for "Travel Lithuania", part of the M...

**Winner of a National Jewish Book Award"Fascinating.…A humane and tragic survey of a great and tragic subject." —Jan Morris, Literary Review**From Alexander Pushkin and Isaac Babel to Zionist renegade Vladimir Jabotinsky and filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, an astonishing cast of geniuses helped shape Odessa, a legendary haven of cosmopolitan freedom on the Black Sea. Drawing on a wealth of original sources and offering the first detailed account of the destruction of...

**From an award-winning cultural theorist, the classic work on the intricate relationship between longing and belonging“A remarkable book… brilliant.”―New York Times**Can one be nostalgic for the home one never had? Why is it that the age of globalization is accompanied by a no less global epidemic of nostalgia? Can we know what we are nostalgic for? In the seventeenth century, Swiss doctors believed that opium, leeches, and a trek through the Alps would cure nosta...