German City, Jewish Memory: The Story of Worms
Nils Roemer
Tauber Institute Series for the Study of European Jewry
"Worms's long and exceedingly complex historical legacy is deftly recovered and expertly analyzed by Niels Roemer in his erudite new book. After wonderfully summarizing the medieval days of devotion to Torah, pietism and unprecedented acts of martyrdom during the First Crusade of 1096, Roemer turns his attention to the long and shifting history of how the community of Worms became a central, if largely symbolic, element in German-Jewish collective memory. . . . Roemer's book is the most original work I have yet to read on German-Jewish intellectual history. . . . A wonderfully sensitive thinker and gracious writer, Roemer has produced an utterly original study in the uses, and misuses, less of history than of memory; for beyond his thorough assessment of earlier historians' treatments of Jewish Worms, he examines a wide array of less conventional sources. Indeed, among the book's many merits is that it ignores no useful source for its subject." —The Forward

Sweet Water and Bitter: The Ships That Stopped the Slave Trade
Sian Rees
"Rees presents a well-researched account of Britain's attempt to stem the Atlantic slave trade by creating the Preventive Squadron to enforce the 1807 Abolition Act. . . . Her use of case histories and personal narratives make this an especially engrossing read. Readers not well acquainted with African geography and nautical nomenclature may find the myriad details overwhelming, but Rees does an overall solid job of crafting a readable but dense narrative for serious readers. VERDICT Rees presents a little-known but historically significant chapter in nautical and slavery history, an important addition to 19th-century studies. Recommended to students and informed lay readers in British history and African geography." —Library Journal

"In admirable, exhaustive, and sometimes deadening detail, Rees sails the high seas in pursuit of the British Preventive Squadron, a tiny fleet of ships that patrolled 3,000 rough miles of African coastline in the early 19th century, in an effort to abolish the slave trade." —Publishers Weekly

Sexual Violence against Jewish Women during the Holocaust
Sonja M. Hedgepeth, ed.; Rochelle G. Saidel, ed.
HBI Series on Jewish Women
"Holocaust Women's Rape Breaks Decades of Taboo"
"The rape and sexual abuse of Jewish women during the Holocaust have been long overlooked. But when researchers probed, stories began to emerge as if they were old photographic film waiting for the right chemicals." —Haaretz and Jewish Journal

"These essays, describing experiences of forced sex, "sex for survival," prostitution, sterilization, abortion, and general sexual humiliation, add greatly to what is known about the lives of Jewish women during WWII. Much of the content here is a philosophical extension of first-person accounts of sexual torture. . . . These essays illustrate how this subject is discussed, or not, across the globe. The fact that this exhaustive volume represents the first set of essays on the subject written in English underpins a fundamental truth held by the editors: while English-speaking countries are comfortable discussing these horrors, the fates specific to the murdered women and survivors of sexual assault are considered by many to be too shameful for discourse." —Publishers Weekly