Refine
Document Type
- Review (27)
- Doctoral Thesis (2)
- Periodical (1)
Language
- English (30) (remove)
Has Fulltext
- yes (30)
Keywords
Institute
Year of publication
- 2016 (30) (remove)
The German historian Markus Krzoska, who is an expert on Central European history, presents his postdoctoral thesis with the publication "Ein Land unterwegs: Kulturgeschichte Polens seit 1945" ("A Country on its Way: Cultural History of Poland since 1945"). The book changes the typical focus from confirmed knowledge (p. 13f) in the field of political and economic history towards Polish everyday life, in order to describe therein the "Normal" and the "European" (p. 21). Although research into contemporary history does link the micro and macro perspectives more often, this everyday-life approach has hardly been used in the case of Poland before. The author rightly maintains, that the functioning of a political system can only be understood by also taking into account everyday phenomena (p. 27). For this reason, he directs his attention to transnational-political frames and to small-scale and regional structures. He does so by analyzing "big events", like the accession of Poland to the European Union, but also through questions of lifestyle within village communities. With this broad research approach, Krzoska does not only support the idea of a paradigm shift within the historiography of Central and Eastern Europe, but he himself successfully places another type of "Cultural and Social History" (orig. "andere Kultur- und Gesellschaftsgeschichte", p. 25) in the forefront of his research.
In times of 'big choices' to be made (again) in European politics, framed by the manifold challenges– from financial and migration to 'Brexit' and security crises, the policymaker and expert community's attention is drawn 'back to Europe and the EU's neighbourhood'. Tulmets' (2014) richly sourced and thoroughly researched comparative account of East Central European foreign policy identity may well facilitate understanding of CEE countries' past and future choices, particularly with regard to the EU's turbulent neighbourhoods.
This book is a charming and compassionate compendium of mostly anthropological research on motorways, motoring and localities. In a series of short but engaging chapters the various authors explore the fascinating mundane, and in so doing elevate mobility from the merely functional to the realm of cultural idiosyncrasy.
The book Building Fortress Europe: The Polish-Ukrainian Frontier by political anthropologist and current fellow at the University of Lancaster dr Karolina Szmagalska-Follis seeks to shed light on various ambiguities and blind spots pertaining to the process of primarily Polish-Ukrainian re-bordering, defined as "the talk and the practice of defining and enforcing the boundaries of the European Union" (p.12). In bringing scholarly attention to the Eastern dimension of the EU border regime, Szmagalska-Follis takes an illustrative case to study the process of re-bordering that took place at the Polish-Ukrainian frontier between 2003 and 2008. This borderland was subject to a steady ideational, territorial, and civilizational re-bordering, following the century-old dynamic of oscillating empires, nation-states and peoples.
Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning is dense. You will probably put it down a couple of times yet pick it up again and again, trying to refocus on the entirety of a colossal tapestry rather than lose yourself in the infinite fine threads that make up the fabric. The interpretative patterns woven are no less complex: multi-layered across local and international settings, with many shades of grey, not white or black. All the same, Snyder's book on the Holocaust remains very readable: it is written with clarity, style, and an inquisitive readership in mind.
Anna Cichopek-Gajraj's recent book offers valuable insight into the efforts of Holocaust survivors to rebuild their lives in Poland and Slovakia immediately after the Second World War. Despite the growing scholarship on Holocaust survivors, little attention has been given to survivors' everyday lives in the postwar period. Cichopek-Gajraj is not exaggerating when she states that most of the scholarship has focused on either violence or emigration as far as the Holocaust survivors' experience in Eastern Europe is concerned. The author challenges the dominating narratives. Her book offers insight "beyond violence" into survivors' daily interactions with non-Jewish Poles, Jewish organizations and the Polish or Slovak state administration.
With her study on Poland and Slovakia, Anna Cichopek-Gajraj advocates for a comparative approach to post-Holocaust studies. As she argues, it allows for elaborating causal explanations, separating unique phenomena from common ones, and offering a different perspective on events "which remain obscure or ambiguous when examined in the context of a single nation-state" (p. 2). Both Poland and Slovakia witnessed outbreaks of post-war anti-Jewish violence but these countries had also very different pre-war and wartime histories, as well as political settings (p. 3). By comparing Poland and Slovakia, the author studies similar phenomena created under different political and social circumstances. According to the author's own statement, her work situates itself in the middle between public and private (p. 8).
"Bożena Keff's essay is not a historical work, but reflection on culture" we can read on the cover of "Antysemityzm". It is a very good summary of the book which offers a nice summary of the history of anti-Semitism in Europe and Poland. Aiming at a wide audience including "college students, university students, teachers and lecturers", the book may serve as an introduction to the topic for those who have never had a chance to read more comprehensive studies discussing the same problem.[1]
Anti-Jewish Violence. Rethinking the Pogrom in East European History, edited by Jonathan Dekel-Chen, David Gaunt, Nathan M. Meir and Israel Bartal, is a collection of eleven essays devoted to pogroms and their role in the history of Jewish-non-Jewish relations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Without looking at pogroms through the lens of the Holocaust, the authors succeeded in presenting different types of pogroms (or the lack of them at the times of the growing anti-Jewish violence) in a new and highly unique way.
The volume consists of a number of well-written articles on Polish-Russian and Polish-Soviet academic cooperation, published in Polish and Russian. Along with its significance for international historical research on Russian-Polish relations, this volume also has an important political meaning. Despite a quite complicated stand of Polish-Russian relations during the last two decades, this volume gives hope that the scientific cooperation between Warsaw and Moscow will continue. Many of its articles deliver a well-researched account of the emergence, evolution and also current development of the scientific cooperation and intellectual interaction between Poland and (post-)Soviet Russia. The bilingual volume is recommendable for everyone interested in the study of the intellectual history of Eastern Europe, Poland and Russia and able to read in Russian and in Polish.
„Energy has become a core issue for the European Union. However, the EU does not have
an exclusive competence in this field” (Morris and Pehnt 2012: 53). Die europäische Energiepolitik
zielt unter anderem auf die Integration des europäischen Energiemarktes als
Schlüssel für eine kosteneffiziente Dekarbonisierung der Energieversorgung. Dies umfasst
beispielsweise den Ausbau der Übertragungskapazitäten im Stromsektor, die fortschreitende
Kopplung der Märkte sowie die Entwicklung gemeinsamer Regeln. Hierbei erlebt jüngst
vor allem das Stromversorgungssystem mit regenerativen Ressourcen einen regelrechten
Innovationsschub, der zur Transformation des Energiesektors in Europa beiträgt.
Deutschland gehört mit seiner nationalen Energiewende zu den Pionieren eines hochkomplexen
Systemwechsels, dessen Erfahrungen zur Einbettung der Energiewende in den europäischen
Kontext beitragen können. Unter anderem zeigt der deutsche Entwicklungspfad,
wie einst fest etablierte, zentralisierte Stromsysteme, meist bestehend aus fossilen und
nuklearen Großkraftwerken, einem zunehmenden Verdrängungswettbewerb durch dezentrale
Stromsysteme mit dargebotsabhängiger Erzeugung aus Sonne und Wind gegenüber
stehen. Gekennzeichnet durch verteilte, kleinteilige Erzeugungsstrukturen in unmittelbarer
Verbrauchernähe stellen die dezentralen Stromsysteme konventionelle Wertschöpfungsstufen
in Frage. Zum einen hat das einschneidende Folgen für den Erfolg etablierter, auf
zentralisierte Stromsysteme orientierte Stromversorger und ihre Geschäftsmodelle und zum
anderen ruft es innovative Wettbewerber ins Feld, die sich mit neuen Geschäftspraktiken
auf dezentrale Stromsysteme spezialisieren, über die jedoch nur wenig bekannt ist.
Daher gibt diese Arbeit Antworten auf zwei Fragen: (1) Wie lassen sich die Geschäftsmodelle
der auf dezentrale Energiesysteme spezialisieren Energieunternehmen in Bezug auf
die derzeit überforderten, etablierten und auf das zentralisierte Stromsystem fokussierten
Energieversorger einordnen? und (2) Welche Rolle spielt das selektive Umfeld für die weitere
Entwicklung von Geschäftsmodellen, die auf dezentrale Energiesysteme spezialisiert
sind?
Ausgehend von einer koevolutionären Beziehung zwischen den genannten Geschäftsmodellen
und ihrem Umfeld, wird zur Beantwortung der Fragestellung ein koevolutionärer Geschäftsmodelrahmen
aus der evolutionären und soziotechnischen Transitionsforschung
hergeleitet und angewendet.
Im Ergebnis werden drei verschiedene Module von spezialisierten Geschäftsmodellen für
dezentrale Energiesysteme hergeleitet. Diese erzeugen unter anderem einen Kannibalisierungsdruck
auf das Ertragsmodell etablierter Geschäftsmodelle. Auch wird derzeit vor allem
durch kontinuierliche technologische Neuerungen, ihre vielseitige Integration sowie verbesserte
Wirtschaftlichkeit ein neues Konsumentenverhalten gefördert, das in wechselseitiger,
positiver Beziehung zu spezialisierten Geschäftsmodellen für dezentrale Energiesysteme
steht.