Peace at All Costs

Peace at All Costs reconsiders postwar Polish-German relations as an interdisciplinary case study of reconciliation and follows an influential network of non-state peace activists, major players in print and audiovisual media, as they attempted to establish dialogue in the 1950s and 1960s.

Annika Elisabet Frieberg is Associate Professor of History at San Diego State University. Her research and teaching focus on war and genocide, gender, conflict resolution, media, and national and transnational questions in northern and Central Europe. She is the co-editor of the volume Reconciling with the Past: Resources and Obstacles in a Global Perspective (Routledge, 2017).

Annika Elisabet Frieberg is Associate Professor of History at San Diego State University. Her research and teaching focus on war and genocide, gender, conflict resolution, media, and national and transnational questions in northern and Central Europe. She is the co-editor of the volume Reconciling with the Past: Resources and Obstacles in a Global Perspective (Routledge, 2017).

“This knowledgeably written study succeeds in exemplarily reopening a conceptual approach that is important for international relations on a hitherto rather neglected source basis and providing important insights for the understanding of both discourses of reconciliation in general and the history of German-Polish relations in particular.” • Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas

“Frieberg’s thoughtful and highly informative study of the Polish-German case is a welcome addition to the very limited English-language literature on this topic. A must-read for students of postwar German-Polish relations, this book will hopefully inspire further studies in this field and encourage more historians to pay attention to television as an understudied but critical source to explore changing perceptions in postwar Europe.” • Central European History

“The author’s well-informed synthesis of the West German history of the media, focusing on Poland, as well as the fact that Frieberg interviewed many of the protagonists of her book, count among the strengths of this volume. In addition, it appears at a time, when a historically grounded and at the same time future-oriented interaction with the German neighbor is more urgently needed than at any time since 1989.” • Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung / Journal of East Central European Studies

“This book provides a valuable view into the mechanisms of reconciliation in the wake of terrible atrocities. It also complicates, in a useful and provocative way, the standard narrative of German-Polish relations after the Second World War.” • Jesse Kauffman, Eastern Michigan University

“Based on extensive archival and media research, Peace at All Costs chronicles in incredible detail Polish-German postwar reconciliation efforts. By giving such a vivid account of the personalities and motivations behind this process, it puts a human face on a political narrative.” • Malgorzata Fidelis, University of Illinois at Chicago