We’re pleased to announce the start of our next book discussion, which will be on Katherine Lebow’s Unfinished Utopia: Nowa Huta, Stalinism, and Polish Society, 1949-56 (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2013). Similar to Sztálinváros in Hungary and Magnitogorsk … Continue reading
Thanks again Anna and Asif for your comments. I will try to answer some of your questions in this post. Referring to people who lived inside and outside Plutopia, Asif asks “how did people separate truth from fiction given the … Continue reading
Thank you Kate, for your reply to my comment. Let me add only a few impressions. In most of the points I fully agree with you, especially on your argument that focuses on the history of the “dirty” aspects of … Continue reading
I want to respond briefly to Kate Brown’s recent thoughtful post. About my use of the term of “comparative history” to describe her book and her preference to see it as a “tandem” history: I appreciate this distinction that she … Continue reading
My thanks to Asif Siddiqi and Anna Veronika Wendland for their thoughtful reponses to Plutopia. I know both of these scholars and respect their work a great deal. They summarize many of my main points much more eloquently than I … Continue reading
„The weather is fine. Everything is blossoming. We are looking forward to our Mayday and Victory day celebrations. Victory day is the most important holiday. But the foremost thing is peace.” These sentences evoke words, sounds, and melodies from the … Continue reading
Comparative histories have a tricky road to navigate. While they may illuminate common points of reference and can highlight counterintuitive connections, they also depend on a fundamental conceit: the degree to which an author is persuasive in the claim that … Continue reading
We’re pleased to begin our next book discussion of the Second World Urbanity project: an exploration of Kate Brown’s Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters (Oxford University Press, 2013). In this richly researched book, Brown explores the … Continue reading
Agata and Elidor offer a series of very insightful reflections on my book, and I am grateful to both of them for their careful and generous reading of the manuscript. I would also like to thank Steve and Daria for … Continue reading
Virág Molnár’s Building the State is compelling, and it aptly demonstrates why there has been such a high degree of academic interest in the built environment and material culture of the former socialist world. Like the best works on the … Continue reading
