Bernard Wasserstein Books

"The revelatory history of Krakowiec - 'a little place you've never heard of ' - through which we see life in Eastern Europe as never before. Decades ago, the historian Bernard Wasserstein set out to uncover the hidden past of the town forty miles west of Lviv where his family originated- Krakowiec (Krah-KOV-yets). In this book he recounts its dramatic and traumatic history. 'I want to observe and understand how some of the great forces that determined the shape of our times affected ordinary people.' The result is an exceptional, often moving book. Wasserstein traces the arc of history across centuries of religious and political conflict, as armies of Cossacks, Turks, Swedes, and Muscovites rampaged through the region. In the age of enlightenment, the Polish magnate Ignacy Cetner built his palace at Krakowiec and, with his vivacious daughter, Princess Anna, created an arcadia of refinement and serenity. Under the Habsburg emperors after 1772, Krakowiec developed into a typical shtetl, with a jostling population of Poles, Ukrainians, and Jews. In 1914, disaster struck. 'Seven years of terror and carnage' left a legacy of ferocious national antagonisms. During the Second World War the Jews were murdered in circumstances harrowingly described by Wasserstein. After the war the Poles were expelled and the town dwindled into a border outpost. Today, the storm of history once again flows through Krakowiec as hordes of refugees flee for their lives from Ukraine to Poland. At the beginning and end of the book we encounter Wasserstein's own family, especially his grandfather Berl. In their lives and the many others Wasserstein has rediscovered, the people of Krakowiec become a prism through which we can feel the shocking immediacy of history. Original in conception and brilliantly achieved, Krakowiec is a masterpiece of recovery and insight"--Publisher's description

With its lurid vice, savage violence and conspiratorial atmosphere, no place on earth in the 1930s and 1940s better exemplified the twilight zone between politics and criminality than China's largest, most cosmopolitan and most dangerous city. Shanghai before the Second World War was an extraordinary place. Civil war raged among Chinese political factions and criminal gangs. Intelligence organizations, police forces and para-military units of many nationalities vied with one another, sold secrets and engaged in a brutal struggle for supremacy in the Far East. In Shanghai espionage, subversion, propaganda and crime came together in a lethal concoction. After Japan invaded China in 1937, the secret war intensified. Bernard Wasserstein has uncovered startling new evidence from intelligence archives in half a dozen countries. He shows how Allied and Axis agents battled one another in this oriental cockpit. He also reveals the extent of collaboration with the Japanese by British, American and Australian nationals. This book untangles a remarkable history of complicity, duplicity and betrayal -- as well as occasional heroism.

Bernard Wasserstein presents a disturbing interpretation of the collapse of European Jewish civilisation even before the Nazi onslaught. He shows how the harsh realities of the age devastated the lives of communities and individuals.

On the Eve is the portrait of a world on the brink of annihilation. In this provocative book, Bernard Wasserstein presents a new and disturbing interpretation of the collapse of European Jewish civilization even before the Nazi onslaught.

„Jerusalem“, schrieb Herman Melville 1860 nach einem Besuch in der Stadt, „wird von einem Heer von Toten belagert.“ Heute steht Jerusalem im Zentrum des Nahost-Konflikts, der sich immer mehr zu einer ernsthaften Bedrohung für den Weltfrieden auswächst. Der britische Historiker Bernard Wasserstein erzählt in seinem spannend geschriebenen Buch, warum die heilige Stadt seit Jahrhunderten keinen Frieden findet. Keine andere Stadt der Welt trägt so schwer an der Last ihrer Geschichte wie Jerusalem. Die heilige Stadt ist für Christen, Juden und Muslime von großer religiöser Bedeutung, und sie liegt im Fadenkreuz der politischen Konflikte zwischen Arabern, Palästinensern und Israelis. Ohne eine Einigung über Jerusalem gibt es keinen Frieden im Nahen Osten. Bernard Wasserstein schildert den dramatischen Kampf um Jerusalem vom 19. Jahrhundert, als dort die europäischen Mächte erstmals auf den Plan traten, bis hin zu den blutigen Ereignissen der letzten Wochen und Monate. Er entwirrt für den Leser das Knäuel der rivalisierenden Kräfte und Interessen in der Stadt, und er erklärt, warum so viele Friedensbemühungen gescheitert sind. Sein grundlegendes, aus den Quellen gearbeitetes Buch ist eine meisterhafte Einführung in eines der schwierigsten Kapitel der Weltpolitik.