What distinguishes history as a discipline from other fields of study? That's the animating question of Sarah Maza's Thinking About History, a general introduction to the field of history that revels in its eclecticism and highlights the inherent tensions and controversies that shape it. Designed for the classroom, Thinking About History is organized around big questions: Whose history do we write, and how does that affect what stories get told and how they are told? How did we come to view t...

Sapiens showed us where we came from. Homo Deus shows us where we're going. War is obsolete. You are more likely to commit suicide than be killed in conflict. Famine is disappearing. You are at more risk of obesity than starvation. Death is just a technical problem. Equality is out - but immortality is in. What does our future hold? Yuval Noah Harari, author of the bestselling phenomenon Sapiens envisions a not-too-distant world in which we face a new set of challenges. Homo Deus explores the...

De Duitse politiek staat onder hoogspanning, en daarmee ook Europa. Sinds de val van de Muur is in de geschiedenis van Duitsland, naast vele successen, een aaneenschakeling van crises waar te nemen: de moeizame integratie van de voormalige DDR in de Bondsrepubliek, de hervormingscrisis van de nieuwe deelstaten, de crisis van de verzorgingsstaat, de bankencrisis, het asiel- en integratiebeleid en de opkomst van het populisme. Het Duitsland Instituut biedt met dit breed opgezette boek een actue...

In Nieuw Amsterdam toont Russell Shorto aan hoe groot de invloed van die jaren ‘Nieuw Amsterdam’ waren voor het huidige New York. Russell Shorto is schrijver en journalist voor The New York Times Magazine. Eerder verscheen van hem in vertaling De botten van Descartes. In 2013 verscheen Amsterdam. Geschiedenis van de meest vrijzinnige stad ter wereld dat lovend werd ontvangen.

In de zeventiende eeuw begon de emigratie vanuit Europa naar Amerika. De eerste stop voor veel Europeanen was Manh...

Old war debts never die, they just fade away.......

In 2015, Britain finally paid off a large war loan issued in 1917 to finance the First World War. In 2010, Germany made the last payments on some 80-year-old debts originally used to finance part of its reparations bill imposed by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.

These were exceptions. The vast majority of the debts made during the Great War have never been paid back, including billion dollar loans from the US to western allies. These debt...