Intertwined Genocides explores the patterns and the internal logic of the genocides carried out by Croatian fascists - the Ustasha - against Serbs, Jews, and Roma during the Second World War. Korb argues that the Italian fascists were not German puppets, but strong-minded and largely independent agents, despite the German and Croatian occupation of their country. They tried to transform their short-lived wartime Croatian state into a mono-ethnic nation-state by force. Whilst pursuing their violent agenda, they soon lost control over much of their territory owing to the armed resistance of their victims. What followed was an escalation of multiple layers of collective violence: local genocide, the German Holocaust, the occupiers' war against partisans, and an escalating civil war, all inextricably intertwined. Because of this mix of perpetrators and their competing agendas, and because of the dynamics of violence and counter-violence, resistance and revenge, aggression and fear, Croatia became one of the most violent venues during the Second World War. Intertwined Genocides shows that South-eastern European nationalists carried out genocide independently of the Germans. Moreover, Alexander Korb brings critically important insights to the histories of violence, genocide, and its perpetrators: in a multi-ethnic society, genocide cannot be studied as an isolated phenomenon. Its dynamic escalation had dramatic effects on every ethnic group, and the victims' responses had a significant impact on the course of events throughout the Second World War, and into the latter half of the twentieth-century.

Intertwined Genocides: Mass Violence in Western Yugoslavia during the Second World War

History

Cohen, Paul

Korb, Alexander

Europe

Oxford University Press

Discovering History in China: American Historical Writing on the Recent Chinese Past (Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University)

Since its first publication, Paul A. Cohen's Discovering History in China has occupied a singular place in American China scholarship. Translated into three East Asian languages, the volume has become essential to the study of China from the early nineteenth century to today. Cohen critiques the work of leading postwar scholars and is especially adamant about not reading China through the lens of Western history. To this end, he uncovers the strong ethnocentric bias pervading the three major conceptual frameworks of American scholarship of the 1950s and 1960s: the impact-response, modernization, and imperialism approaches. In place of these, Cohen favors a "China-centered" approach in which historians understand Chinese history on its own terms, paying close attention to Chinese historical trajectories and Chinese perceptions of their problems, rather than a set of expectations derived from Western history. In an important new introduction, Cohen reflects on his fifty-year career as a historian of China and discusses major recent trends in the field. Although some of these developments challenge a narrowly conceived China-centered approach, insofar as they enable more balanced comparisons between China and the West and recast the Chinese and their history in more human, less exotic terms, they powerfully affirm the central thrust of Cohen's work.

Asia

Columbia University Press

History and Popular Memory: The Power of Story in Moments of Crisis

When people experience a traumatic event, such as war or the threat of annihilation, they often turn to history for stories that promise a positive outcome to their suffering. During World War II, the French took comfort in the story of Joan of Arc and her heroic efforts to rid France of foreign occupation. To bring the Joan narrative more into line with current circumstances, however, popular retellings modified the original story so that what people believed took place in the past was often quite different from what actually occurred.Paul A. Cohen identifies this interplay between story and history as a worldwide phenomenon, found in countries of radically different cultural, religious, and social character. He focuses here on Serbia, Israel, China, France, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain, all of which experienced severe crises in the twentieth century and, in response, appropriated age-old historical narratives that resonated with what was happening in the present to serve a unifying, restorative purpose. A central theme in the book is the distinction between popular memory and history. Although vitally important to historians, this distinction is routinely blurred in people's minds, and the historian's truth often cannot compete with the power of a compelling story from the past, even when it has been seriously distorted by myth or political manipulation. Cohen concludes by suggesting that the patterns of interaction he probes, given their near universality, may well be rooted in certain human propensities that transcend cultural difference.

When people experience a traumatic event, such as war or the threat of annihilation, they often turn to history for stories that promise a positive outcome to their suffering. During World War II, the French took comfort in the story of Joan of Arc and her heroic efforts to rid France of foreign occupation. To bring the Joan narrative more into line with current circumstances, however, popular retellings modified the original story so that what people believed took place in the past was often quite different from what actually occurred. Paul A. Cohen identifies this interplay between story and history as a worldwide phenomenon, found in countries of radically different cultural, religious, and social character. He focuses here on Serbia, Israel, China, France, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain, all of which experienced severe crises in the twentieth century and, in response, appropriated age-old historical narratives that resonated with what was happening in the present to serve a unifying, restorative purpose. A central theme in the book is the distinction between popular memory and history. Although vitally important to historians, this distinction is routinely blurred in people's minds, and the historian's truth often cannot compete with the power of a compelling story from the past, even when it has been seriously distorted by myth or political manipulation. Cohen concludes by suggesting that the patterns of interaction he probes, given their near universality, may well be rooted in certain human propensities that transcend cultural difference.

Discovering History in China: American Historical Writing on the Recent Chinese Past

A collection of more than 100 riddles about medical care and diseases both real and imagined, including "What do you call it when you break out in tiny wristwatches? Small clocks."

Dizzy Doctor Riddles

Bernstein, Joanne E.

Whiting, Carl

Children's Books

Albert Whitman & Co.

A collection of over 100 travel-related riddles and jokes, covering such subjects as airports, expressways, famous landmarks, motels, states, and cities.

Riddles to Take on Vacation

Bernstein, Joanne

Includes more than 130 humorous riddles involving a variety of familiar characters

What Was the Wicked Witch's Real Name and Other Character Riddles

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cohen, Paul. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Cohen, Paul

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cohen, Paul. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Intertwined Genocides: Mass Violence in Western Yugoslavia during the Second World War

Discovering History in China: American Historical Writing on the Recent Chinese Past (Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University)

Discovering History in China: American Historical Writing on the Recent Chinese Past (Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University)

History and Popular Memory: The Power of Story in Moments of Crisis

History and Popular Memory: The Power of Story in Moments of Crisis

Discovering History in China: American Historical Writing on the Recent Chinese Past

History and Popular Memory: The Power of Story in Moments of Crisis

Dizzy Doctor Riddles

Riddles to Take on Vacation

What Was the Wicked Witch's Real Name and Other Character Riddles