T - Peter Lang

26 History · Geschichte · Histoire
T
Tibor Frank
Double Exile
his is a social history of refugees escaping
Hungary after the Bolshevik-type
revolution of 1919, the ensuing counterrevolution,
and the rise of anti-Semitism . Largely
Jewish and German before World War I, the
Hungarian middle class was torn by the disastrous
war, the partitioning of Hungary in
the Treaty of Trianon, and the numerus clausus
act XXV in 1920 that seriously curtailed
the number of Jews admitted to higher education
. Hungary’s outstanding future professionals,
whether Jewish, Liberal or Socialist,
felt compelled to leave the country and
head to German-speaking universities in Austria,
Czechoslovakia, and Germany . When
Hitler came to power, these exiles were to
flee again, many on the fringes of the huge
German emigration . Emotionally prepared
by their earlier threatening experiences in
Hungary, they were quick to recognize the
need to uproot themselves again . Many fled
to the United States where their double exile
catalyzed the USA into an active enemy
of Nazi Germany and stimulated the transplantation
of European modernism into
American art and music . To their surprise,
the refugees also encountered anti-Semitism
in the USA . The book is based on extensive
archival work in the USA and Germany .
«Tibor Frank is the world’s foremost expert on
Hungarian scholars, scientists, and artists
who chose exile or were forced into exile during
the first half of the twentieth century. (...)
Frank’s description of the adventures of these
extraordinary expatriates is as fascinating as
is, for instance, his analysis of how some among
them helped to develop the atomic and nuclear
bombs as well as computers, thereby literally
changing the way we live and think today.»
(István Deák, Columbia University)
«This fascinating book goes far beyond Fermi’s
and Bailyn/Fleming’s accounts and presents
the whole story in all its transatlantic richness.
(...) Finally, the individual profiles, most especially
of Leo Szilard, but also of Michael Po-
Migrations of Jewish-Hungarian Professionals through
Germany to the United States, 1919-1945
Oxford, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, New York, Wien, 2009 .
501 pp ., 24 ill .
Exile Studies . An Interdisciplinary Series . Vol . 7
Edited by Alexander Stephan
pb . ISBN 978-3-03911-331-6
CHF 83 .– / € D 63 .– / € A 64 .80 / € 58 .90 / £ 53 .– / US-$ 88 .95
€ D includes VAT – valid for Germany · € A includes VAT – valid for Austria
lanyi, George Pólya, Theodore von Kármán,
and John von Neumann, give the collective story
of so many names in so many fields of the sciences
and social sciences its subjective and personal
touches. At the end I was forced to contemplate
the historical contingency that without
the Hungarian ‘gimnázium’ there might
not have been an American atomic bomb...»
(Werner Sollors, Harvard University)
«The book to be read (...) is Frank’s masterly
account of a greatly gifted generation, most
of the members of which had twice to begin
their lives anew in foreign lands.» (Lee Congdon,
Hungarian Studies Review)
«Frank covers an impressive range of issues
and people, examining with great care the
Hungarian, Central European, German and
American layers of the émigré question, returning
time and again to the notion of the
‘Hungarian genius’ and the idea that emigration
studies should further differentiate national
origins, so as to become aware of the
more intricate effects of specific cultural traditions
and educations. In doing so, Frank creates
a surprisingly pleasant, considering the
subject, and at times page-turning, narrative
that provides access to a staggering amount
of data and source material about Hungarian-Jewish
professionals from 1919 up to the
present.» (Ilse Josepha Maria Lazaroms, European
Review of History)
tiBor Frank , M .A ., Dr .Univ ., Ph .D ., D .Litt .
is Professor of History and Director of the
School of English and American Studies at
Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary
. He has taught frequently at universities
in the USA (UCSB, UCLA, Nevada-Reno, Columbia)
. In 2002 he won the prestigious German
Humboldt Research Award and spent the academic
year 2003-04 in the Max Planck Institute
for the History of Science in Berlin, Germany
. Professor Frank is a corresponding fellow
of the Royal Historical Society, London .
Léonard Laborie
L’Europe mise en réseaux
La France et la coopération internationale
dans les postes et les télécommunications
(années 1850-années 1950)
Bruxelles, Bern, Berlin, Frankfurt am Main,
New York, Oxford, Wien, 2010 . 494 p ., nombr . ill .
Enjeux internationaux . Vol . 12
Directeurs de collection : Eric Bussière,
Michel Dumoulin, Sylvain Schirmann,
Geneviève Duchenne et Émilie Willaert
br . ISBN 978-90-5201-679-5
CHF 67 .– / € D 50 .80 / € A 52 .30 / € 47 .50 /
£ 43 .– / US-$ 71 .95
eBook 978-3-0352-6025-0
R
ien ne paraît aujourd’hui plus simple que
d’envoyer une carte postale depuis l’étranger
ou de joindre par téléphone les antipodes . Les réseaux
de communication, postaux ou électriques,
s’affranchissent non seulement des distances,
mais des frontières . Cet état de fait n’a rien de naturel
ou de techniquement déterminé . Pour lui donner
la forme qu’il a prise, il a certes fallu des moyens
matériels, révolutionnés au cours des innovations,
mais aussi des accords politiques et techniques .
Le présent ouvrage est le premier à proposer
une histoire, de l’intérieur et dans la longue
durée, de la coopération qui a ainsi canalisé l’expansion
internationale des flux d’information
depuis la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle . En suivant
les acteurs français, il plonge dans l’espace
méconnu des organisations techniques internationales,
avec leurs débats feutrés aux lourds
enjeux économiques et symboliques, où se sont
articulés de manière originale la souveraineté
des Etats, le service d’un public transnational et
un idéal de rapprochement des peuples . Récit
de la mise au monde des réseaux, c’est aussi celui
de la mise en réseaux d’une Europe où les
frontières sont moins des barrières que des franchissements
. Avec au cœur, à la charnière du
technique et du diplomatique, la communauté
discrète et puissante des experts .
«This book is comprehensively, thoroughly,
even exhaustively researched. [...] This is, in
many respects, an interesting book in the history
of technology and what Laborie calls ‘technological
diplomacy’. It is not about the culture
of technology, but even cultural historians, not
to mention political, diplomatic, and economic
specialists, will find much useful detail.» (Stephen
L. Harp, H-France Review)
léonard laBorie est agrégé et docteur en
histoire de l’Université Paris-Sorbonne . Il est
chargé de recherche au CNRS, à l’UMR Irice 8138
(Paris I - Paris IV) .