Edited by Timothy Tackett (NHC Fellow, 2000–01) and Stewart J. Brown During the tumultuous period of world history from 1660 to 1815, three complex movements combined to bring a fundamental cultural reorientation to Europe and North America, and ultimately to the wider world. The Enlightenment transformed views of nature and of the human capacity to … Continued
By David B. Quinn (NHC Fellow, 1982–83) This book brings together a collection of the work of David Quinn, the preeminent authority on the early history of the discovery and colonization of America.
By Kate Flint (NHC Fellow, 2007–08; 2015–16) Flash! presents a fascinating cultural history of flash photography, from its mid-nineteenth century beginnings to the present day. All photography requires light, but the light of flash photography is quite distinctive: artificial, sudden, shocking, intrusive, and extraordinarily bright. Associated with revelation and wonder, it has been linked to the … Continued
By Edward J. Balleisen (NHC Fellow, 2009–10) In America, fraud has always been a key feature of business, and the national worship of entrepreneurial freedom complicates the task of distinguishing salesmanship from deceit. In this sweeping narrative, Edward Balleisen traces the history of fraud in America—and the evolving efforts to combat it—from the age of P. … Continued
By Robert Beachy (NHC Fellow, 2006–07) In the half century before the Nazis rose to power, Berlin became the undisputed gay capital of the world. Activists and medical professionals made it a city of firsts—the first gay journal, the first homosexual rights organization, the first Institute for Sexual Science, the first sex reassignment surgeries—exploring and … Continued
By Anthony J. La Vopa (NHC Fellow, 1983–84; 1998–99) This book focuses on "poor students", young men in eighteenth-century Germany who owed their studies to charity, who formed a substantial minority within the theology faculties, and who entered careers in the clergy, the academic schools, and the universities. Professor La Vopa shows how a cluster … Continued
By Susan Youens (NHC Fellow, 2003–04) More than any other poet, Heinrich Heine has provided composers for almost two hundred years with texts for music: more than eight thousand compositions to date. Nineteenth-century composers were drawn in particular to a limited selection of Heine's early lyrical works from the Buch der Lieder and the Neue … Continued
Edited by John Higham (NHC Fellow, 1987–88; 1988–89)
By Alex Zwerdling (NHC Fellow, 1992–93)
By Silvana Patriarca (NHC Fellow, 2005–06) Why do Italians believe that they have a national character and that this character is a major reason for their political woes? Why is their self-image so frequently derogatory? In this meticulous study of the role of national character in Italian political and social discourse, Silvana Patriarca reconstructs the … Continued