This week's new books

A Very Brief History of Eternity, Carlos Eire (Princeton University Press)
In this history of the idea eternity in Western culture, from ancient times to the present, that author examines the rise and fall of five different conceptions of eternity, exploring how they developed and how they have helped shape individual and collective self-understanding.

New York Undercover: Private Surveillance in the Progressive Era, Jennifer Fronc (University of Chicago Press)
A study of the private investigators employed by social activists in Progressive-era New York to uncover the roots of society’s problems and combat behaviour they viewed as sexually promiscuous, politically undesirable or criminal.

There Is No Freedom Without Bread, Constantine Pleshakov (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux)
A revisionist account of 1989 and the revolutions that took place during the same year challenges the conventional story of the end of the cold war, which focuses on the geopolitical power struggle between the United States, and argues that 1989 was as much about national civil wars and internal power struggles as it was about Eastern Europeans throwing of the yoke of Moscow.

Rethinking History, Dictatorship and War, ed. Claus-Christian Szejnmann (Continuum)
Focusing on European experiences of the First and Second World Wars and totalitarian dictatorships in the first half of the 20th century, this collection of essays explores three important themes of historical studies: the way history is or ought to be written, the nature of dictatorships and the nature of wars.