| Vendor | |
|---|---|
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Liepman Literary Agency
Marc Koralnik |
| Original language | |
| English | |
| Weblink | |
| https://www.monicablack.net/ | |
A DEMON-HAUNTED LAND
Witches, Wonder Doctors, and the Ghosts of the Past in Post-WWII Germany
A DEMON-HAUNTED LAND offers a completely fresh interpretation of Germany's immediate postwar period, taking a novel, narrative approach to unearthing Nazism's enduring emotional and spiritual effects.
Unlike most histories of the period, which emphasize Germany's economic expansion and political normalization, this is a cultural history that looks at how ordinary people tried to understand and to cope with the meaning of evil after Hitler, after the Holocaust, and after history's most catastrophic war.
At the book's center is the story of Bruno Groening, a faith healer who rose to rock-star prominence after his miraculous curing of a crippled boy in 1949, alongside his manager, a former member of Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry. Tens of thousands sought him out, while millions of others, amidst widespread fears of impending apocalypse, searched for holy men, exorcists, witchdoctors, and faith healers to ward off the magic, witchcraft, and demons rumored to be sweeping Germany. Ultimately, Groening was brought to trial for murder.
Through Groening's and others' interwoven stories, A DEMON-HAUNTED LAND rewrites Germany's history of defeat and democratic transition, raising absorbing questions about witchcraft and medicine, sickness and health, faith and skepticism, spiritual healing and modern medicine, knowledge and the unknowable in the Cold War West.
Dr. Monica Black is an associate professor of European History at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Her first book, Death in Berlin: From Weimar to Divided Germany (Cambridge, 2010), won both the Hans Rosenberg Prize and the Fraenkel Prize in Contemporary History. Grants from the American Council of Learned Societies and the American Academy in Berlin (where Professor Black was a John P. Birkelund Fellow in 2014) supported her research for A DEMON-HAUNTED LAND in more than a dozen local and national German archives.
At the book's center is the story of Bruno Groening, a faith healer who rose to rock-star prominence after his miraculous curing of a crippled boy in 1949, alongside his manager, a former member of Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry. Tens of thousands sought him out, while millions of others, amidst widespread fears of impending apocalypse, searched for holy men, exorcists, witchdoctors, and faith healers to ward off the magic, witchcraft, and demons rumored to be sweeping Germany. Ultimately, Groening was brought to trial for murder.
Through Groening's and others' interwoven stories, A DEMON-HAUNTED LAND rewrites Germany's history of defeat and democratic transition, raising absorbing questions about witchcraft and medicine, sickness and health, faith and skepticism, spiritual healing and modern medicine, knowledge and the unknowable in the Cold War West.
Dr. Monica Black is an associate professor of European History at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Her first book, Death in Berlin: From Weimar to Divided Germany (Cambridge, 2010), won both the Hans Rosenberg Prize and the Fraenkel Prize in Contemporary History. Grants from the American Council of Learned Societies and the American Academy in Berlin (where Professor Black was a John P. Birkelund Fellow in 2014) supported her research for A DEMON-HAUNTED LAND in more than a dozen local and national German archives.
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Published 2020-07-01 by Metropolitan |