Philipp Ther

Beyond the Nation: The Relational Basis of a Comparative History of Germany and Europe

The process of European integration is posing a challenge to scholars in the humanities and the social sciences to rethink their frames of analysis. The once dominant nation-state has lost relevance while transnational processes and exchanges are receiving greater attention. This is not only true for the social sciences and economics, but also for history. The closer the European states are integrated, the more questions about Europes past are asked. But what is European history, and upon which methods and units of analysis can it be built? Is it the sum of national histories, just as the EU is a union of nation-states, or is it something more? Since no one subject of European history can possibly encompass all countries on the continent, it is clear that independent of the general topic there needs to be a certain selection of studies about more than one local or national case. If those studies, no matter whether they cover political, social, or cultural history, are to be synthesized on a European level, comparisons need to be made at a certain stage of any given work. The same holds true for the history of Central Europe, an area with a particularly high degree of internal differentiation.

The dark side of nation-states : ethnic cleansing in modern Europe

Introduction PART I: SETTING THE GROUND Chapter 1. Preconditions of Ethnic Cleansing PART II: PHASES AND AGENTS OF ETHNIC CLEANSING Chapter 2. Ethnic Cleansing as an Instrument of International Politics (1912-25) Chapter 3. Total War and Total Cleansings (1938-44) Chapter 4. A Clean New Order in Europe (1944-50) PART III: GHOSTS OF THE PAST Chapter 5. The former Yugoslavia and the Caucasus (1991-99) Conclusion and Historical Typology Acknowledgments Annotated Bibliography

Das Europa der Nationalkulturen. Die Nationalisierung und Europäisierung der Oper im «langen» 19. Jahrhundert

The Europe of National Cultures. National and European Dimensions of Opera during the «long» 19th Century During the 1830s and 1840s music was used by national movements in Central and Eastern Europe as a medium of nation-building. With the help of cultural associations and institutions this process shaped especially the musical practices, the repertoire and the reception of opera. «National» musical styles were canonised because of the international reception of particular pieces. This process is analysed here in a comparative perspective and within the conceptualisation of cultural transfers between Western, Central and Eastern Europe. In the course of the last third of the 19th Century an intensified exchange between national musical cultures converged in the repertoire and the reception of operas and thereby in the establishment of a common European cultural practice.

Eine Einführung in die Geschichte des Neoliberalismus

Das grose Thema von Dieter Segert, die Transformation der osteuropaischen Gesellschaften, Wirtschaften und politischen Systeme nach dem Ende des Staatssozialismus, vollzog sich unter speziellen Bedingungen. Fur den Verlauf der Transformation war vor allem die globale Hegemonie des Neoliberalismus seit den 1980er Jahren bestimmend, dessen ideelle Grundlagen, Praxis und soziale Folgen nachfolgend erlautert werden.