A fresh and insightful history of how the German arts-and-letters scene was transformed under the Nazis Culture was integral to the smooth running of the Third Reich. In the years preceding WWII, a wide variety of artistic forms were used to instill a Nazi ideology in the German people and to manipulate the public perception of Hitler's enemies. During the war, the arts were closely tied to the propaganda machine that promoted the cause of Germany's military campaigns. Michael H. Kater's engaging and deeply researched account of artistic culture within Nazi Germany considers how the German arts-and-letters scene was transformed when the Nazis came to power. With a broad purview that ranges widely across music, literature, film, theater, the press, and visual arts, Kater details the struggle between creative autonomy and political control as he looks at what became of German artists and their work both during and subsequent to Nazi rule.

Carola Nielinger-Vakil examines selected works by Nono in the historical context of Italy and Germany after 1945.

Egon Erwin Kisch (1885-1948) is widely regarded as one of the most outstanding journalists of the twentieth century. He is also credited with virtually defining reportage as a form of literary art in which accuracy of observation and fidelity to facts combine with creative narrative. Born in Prague under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Kisch began his career as a crime reporter for local newspapers. He saw combat in Serbia as a soldier in the Austro-Hungarian Army in World War I, led an abortive left-wing coup d'etat in Vienna in 1918, and became famous in the German-speaking world as der rasende Reporter (the raging reporter) when he exposed the attempted cover-up of a case of treason in high places that rocked the Habsburg Empire on the eve of World War I. He visited North Africa, the Soviet Union, Central Asia, Australia, China, and the United States, where he traveled from one coast to the other as an ordinary seaman, made friends with Charlie Chaplin and Upton Sinclair, and commented with wit and irony on American life.