In this edition of Druckfrisch Book Discussion, Austin Glatthorn (University of Southampton) discussed his book “Music Theatre and the Holy Roman Empire” with Ellinor Forster (Innsbruck), Barbara Babić (Leipzig), and Axel Körner (Leipzig).

The interdisciplinary study “Music Theatre and the Holy Roman Empire: The German Musical Stage at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century” by Austin Glatthorn was published by Cambridge University Press in July 2022. It reveals the interconnected world of music theatre during the ‘Classical era’.

The event took place as part of the ERC Study day, which is organised by the ERC Project “Opera and the Politics of Empire in Habsburg Europe, 1815–1914” in cooperation with the Centre of Competence for Theatre (CCT) and the Leipzig Research Centre Global Dynamics (ReCentGlobe).

In this edition of Druckfrisch we discussed the book “The American Revolution and the Habsburg Monarchy” with author Jonathan Singerton.

The book presents the American Revolution from the perspective of the Habsburg monarchy. It reveals how, despite seeming antithetical to the American cause, the Habsburg dynasty and people in the Habsburg lands realized the opportunity unleashed by the creation of the thirteen United States of America, demonstrating the wider effects of the American Revolution beyond the standard Atlantic World and portraying the Habsburg Monarchy in a new, oceanic light.

Chair: Maren Röger, Leibniz-Institut für Geschichte und Kultur des östlichen Europa (GWZO) Discussants: Jana Osterkamp, LMU München and Axel Körner, Universität Leipzig

Reply: Jonathan Singerton, Universität Innsbruck The event was jointly organized by the Leipzig Research Centre Global Dynamics, the ERC-Project “Opera and Politics of Empire in Habsburg Europe, 1815–1914”, and the Leibniz-Institute for History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO).

In this edition of Druckfrisch Book Discussion, Sandrine Kott (Université de Genève) discussed her book “Organiser le monde. Une autre histoire de la guerre froide” (SEUIL) with Katja Castryck-Naumann (GWZO), Antje Dietze (SFB1199), and Martin Deuerlein (University of Tübingen). An English translation of the book is now available under the title “A World More Equal. An Internationalist Perspective on the Cold War” at Columbia University Press.

By adopting an international perspective, the book challenges the usual interpretation of the post-World War II period too often reduced to the Cold War seen as a global conflict between the United States and the USSR that would have dominated international affairs. This book looks at international organizations and associations as stages on which the Cold War discourse was deployed, but which are above all, especially their secretariats, spaces for dialogue and working together across the ideological divisions of the Cold War. It tells the story of this period through the prism of internationalism as an ideology and a social practice.

Druckfrisch Book Discussion is an event series by ReCentGlobe and the European Network in Universal and Global History (ENIUGH).

This edition was organized in cooperation with:

• Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 1199: “Processes of Spatialization under the Global Condition”
• Leipzig Centre for the Study of France and the Francophone World
• Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO)