18th Century shoplifting, a pillars of Russian pianism, and film and fashion in postwar Germany are just some of the topics bursting out of this August’s must-reads. Take a look through our highlights and see which book you could soak up in the sunshine. Until next time!
Gained Ground
Perspectives on Canadian and Comparative North American Studies
Since the elections of Donald Trump and Justin Trudeau, unprecedented international attention is being drawn to the differences between the United States and Canada. This timely volume takes a close comparative look at the national imaginaries of the two countries: literature, film, opera, and even theme parks – providing a reassessment of Canadian Studies within a comparative framework.
Remaking Mutirikwi
Landscape, Water and Belonging in Southern Zimbabwe
The Mutirikwi river was dammed in the early 1960s to make Zimbabwe’s second largest lake. This was a key moment in the Europeanisation of Mutirikwi’s landscapes, which had begun with colonial land appropriations in the 1890s. Fontein offers a detailed ethnographic and historical study of the implications of fast-track land reform in Zimbabwe from the perspective of those involved in land occupations around Lake Mutirikwi, from the colonial period to the present day.
Shoplifting in Eighteenth-Century England
As a new consumer culture took root in England and shops proliferated, the crime of shoplifting leaped to public prominence. Regarded initially as exclusively a crime of the poor, the eighteenth century witnessed a transformation in the public perception and understanding of such customer theft, signalled by the shocking arrest of Jane Austen’s wealthy aunt for shoplifting in 1799.
Stuff
Catalogue of Archaeological Finds from Amsterdam’s North/South Metro Line
Stuff gathers the archaeological finds made during the 9 years of construction of a metro line from the riverbed into a material history of the city of Amsterdam. The book showcases 15,000 of the over 700,000 archaeological finds that were retrieved.
Heinrich Neuhaus
A Life beyond Music
Heinrich Neuhaus (1888-1964) was one of the most charismatic and sought after pianist-pedagogues of the twentieth century, earning a formidable reputation in the West as one of the pillars of Russian pianism. Razumovskaya’s text is the first critical study of this masterful artist exploring what went on in his teaching studio and the vibrant circumstances that underpinned Neuhaus’s unique outlook and approach.
Film and Fashion amidst the Ruins of Berlin
From Nazism to the Cold War
This book steers attention toward two key aspects of German culture – film and fashion – that shared similar trajectories and multiple connections, looking at them not only in the immediate postwar years but as far back as 1939. They formed spectacular sites of the postwar recovery processes in both East and West Germany.
The Arms and Armour of Death