Congratulations to Professor Emeritus Michael Kater, from the Department of History, who has received the 2024 Canadian Jewish Literary Awards' Irving Abella Book Award in History for his book, After the Nazis: The Story of Culture in West Germany.
The book provides a detailed history of culture in West Germany after 1945, looking at everything from literature to the visual arts to better understand how West Germany processed the events of Nazism and recovered its democracy.
There have been many favourable reviews of the book. Anthony Paletta of the Washington Examiner said, “There are other books on postwar Germany of real quality, yet Kater has managed the most comprehensive on the question of just how Germany became, well, vaguely normal. He accords considerable credit to artists, authors, and filmmakers for providing regular pressure to ensure that this remains the case.”
The Canadian Jewish Literary Awards recognizes the finest books with Jewish themes and subjects by Canadian authors in a variety of genres. The Irving Abella Award in History is given annually in memory of Abella, a highly influential Canadian Jewish studies historian.
Professor Kater is Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus of History and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC). Over his impressive research career, Professor Kater has published pathbreaking studies on elements of modern German history, including Doctors Under Hitler (1989), Different Drummers: Jazz in the Culture of Nazi Germany (1992) and The Twisted Muse: Musicians and Their Music in the Third Reich (1997). He has received numerous prestigious awards, including the Guggenheim and the Canada Council Senior Killam Research Fellowships, and being named a member of the Royal Society of Canada.
After the Nazis was published by Yale University Press.
