
New Books in Eastern European Studies
Interviews with Scholars of Eastern Europe about their New Books Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies
Show episodes

Keir Giles, "Who Will Defend Europe?: An Awakened Russia and a Sleeping Continent" (Hurst & Co., 2024)
Who will defend Europe? The answer should be obvious: Europe should be able to defend itself. Yet, for decades, most of the continent enjoyed a defence holiday, outsourcing protection to the United States while banking an increasingly illusory ‘peace dividend’. Now, after three decades of reducing armed forces and draw

Greta Lynn Uehling, "Decolonizing Ukraine: The Indigenous People of Crimea and Pathways to Freedom" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2025)
In Decolonizing Ukraine: The Indigenous People of Crimea and Pathways to Freedom (Rowman & Littlefield, 2025), anthropologist Dr. Greta Lynn Uehling illuminates the untold stories of Russia’s occupation of Crimea from 2014 to the present, revealing the traumas of colonization, foreign occupation, and population displac

Claire Knight, "Stalin's Final Films: Cinema, Socialist Realism, and Soviet Postwar Reality, 1945-1953" (Cornell UP, 2024)
Stalin's Final Films: Cinema, Socialist Realism, and Soviet Postwar Reality, 1945-1953 (Cornell UP, 2024) explores a neglected period in the history of Soviet cinema, breathing new life into a body of films long considered moribund as the pinnacle of Stalinism. While film censorship reached its apogee in this period an

Yitzhak Conforti, "Zionism and Jewish Culture: A Study in the Origins of a National Movement" (Academic Studies Press, 2024)
What many people don’t realize is that Zionism is not a monolithic term. From its inception there were rigorous debates about the nature and direction of the movement? Thinkers had argued about some of the fundamental questions around Israel. Where would a future Jewish state be located? What language would they speak?

Charles Hecker, "Zero Sum: The Arc of International Business in Russia" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Today I interviewed Charles Hecker about Zero Sum. The Arc of International Business in Russia (Oxford UP, 2025). Hecker, a journalist and business consultant, speaks with dozens of Western business executives, bankers, and financiers who reaped immense profits for themselves and their companies in the Russian market,

Jan Borowicz, "Perverse Memory and the Holocaust: A Psychoanalytic Understanding of Polish Bystanders" (Routledge, 2024)
Today I interviewed Jan Borowicz about Perverse Memory and the Holocaust: A Psychoanalytic Understanding of Polish Bystanders (Routledge, 2024). "The assumptions of my book rely on a simple thesis: indifference to violence is impossible and that the primal scene for Polish culture is the experience of Nazism. In Poland