Böcker av Matthew Stibbe

This edited collection represents the first comprehensive volume in English on the crucial, but under-explored, late period in the history of East European communism. Focusing on developments in Czechoslovakia from the crushing of the Prague Spring in August 1968 to the ¿Velvet Revolution¿ of November 1989, the book examines a broad range of political, social and cultural issues, while also analysing external perceptions and relations. It explores the concept of ¿normalisation¿ in historical context and brings together British, American, Czech and Slovak experts, each with their own archival research and particular interpretations. Overall, the anthology aims to assess the means by which the Prague Spring reforms were repealed and how Czechoslovakia was returned to a ¿normal¿ communist state in line with Soviet orthodoxy. Key themes include the Communist Party and ideology; State Security; Slovak developments; ¿auto-normalisation¿; women and gender; cultural and intellectual currents; everyday life and popular opinion; and Czechoslovakiäs political and cultural relationship with the USSR, the GDR, Poland and Yugoslavia. The volume sheds light on the process of decay of the Czechoslovak communist regime and the reasons for its ultimate collapse in 1989.

While Nazi Germany has been the subject of countless scholarly works, gender studies, as a category of analysis, has largely been neglected in interpretative surveys of Nazi Germany. This book examines the female half of the German population during the years of the Third Reich and asks why such a sizeable portion of the population was ready to rally around a movement both blatantly anti-feminist and determined to exclude women from public life. It explains how ordinary Germans translated Nazi beliefs into action and what factors, in addition to gender, influenced women's political choices between 1933 and 1945.

This book is the first major study of civilian internment during the First World War as both a European and global phenomenon.

This book tells the forgotten story of four to five thousand British civilians who were interned at the Ruhleben camp near Berlin during the First World War. Together they formed a unique community in the heart of enemy territory, based on a diverse and extremely rich culture of enduring significance. -- .