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ALICE’S BOOK
A SPECTATOR AND PROSPECT MAGAZINE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022
“A remarkable and important story” BBC R4 WOMAN’S HOUR
“A gripping piece of 20th-century family history … moving and clear-eyed” FINANCIAL TIMES
“Brilliant … the material is stunningly interesting … It is a triumph” DANIEL FINKELSTEIN
“An unputdownable narrative” A.N.WILSON
“Engaging, elegant and moving” LITERARY REVIEW
ALICE’S BOOK IS AVAILABLE IN SEVEN LANGUAGES
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1938. Signing away her rights under duress:
Go-betweens For HiTLER
Selected by History Today as one of the best books of 2015
[An] excellent book… Urbach has alighted upon a little studied and rather fascinating phenomenon; that of the aristocratic amateur ambassador, the titled back-stairs diplomatist.
The Times
Diplomatic historians have mostly stuck to official documents. Urbach’s engrossing and well-researched book constitutes an argument for extending the history of international relations to cover the kind of informal networks she describes.
London Review of Books, Richard J. Evans
A fascinating page-turner about Hitler’s secret diplomacy in the 1930s, which was intended to secure British amity and then neutrality when he led Germany to war … Urbach combed her way through archives across Europe to construct this image of a decaying aristocracy using their connections in the cultivation of appeasers in Britain. They were not without influence.
Book of the Year 2015, History Today, Lawrence Goldman
Just when one thinks every possible aspect of this war has been covered, along comes a surprise. Such is Karina Urbach’s highly original new book, Go-Betweens for Hitler… an unsurpassable work on this intriguing subject.
Daily Telegraph
Urbach has written a book that is as stimulating as it is entertaining, and one which deserves a wide readership.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ)
Further Monographs
A selection of publications has been digitized, see: Albert – The Digital Repository of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton.
Queen Victoria, C.H. Beck, Munich 2011 (Fourth edition 2022)
Bismarck’s Favourite Englishman. Lord Odo Russell’s mission to Berlin, London 2021 (first edition 2000)
Edited Books
- with Ulrich Lappenküper (eds.), Realpolitik für Europa: Bismarcks Weg, Paderborn 2016
- with Franz Bosbach, John Davis (eds.), Common Heritage, Documents and Sources concerning German-British Relations in the Archives and Collections of Windsor and Coburg, Vol. I 2015, Vol II 2018
- with Jonathan Haslam (eds.), Secret Intelligence and the International Relations of Europe in the 20thC, Stanford University Press 2013
- with Brendan Simms (eds.), Bringing Personality back in: Leadership and War. A British-German Comparison 1740-1945, Munich 2010
- Royal Kinship. British and German Family Networks 1815-1914, München 2008
- European Aristocracies and the Radical Right in the Interwar Period, Oxford University Press 2007
- with Franz Bosbach and Keith Robbins (eds.), Birth or Talent? The Formation of Elites in a British-German Comparison, München 2003
Articles
- England is pro-Hitler. German opinions during the Czechoslovakian crisis, in: Julie Gottlieb/Daniel Hucker/Richard Toye (eds.), The Munich Crisis, politics and the people, Manchester University Press 2021
- 1871. Gründung des Deutschen Reiches – Kaiserproklamation in Versailles, in: Andreas Fahrmeir (ed.), Deutschland. Globalgeschichte einer Nation, München 2020.
- Nützliche Idioten. Die Hohenzollern und Hitler, in: Thomas Biskup/Jürgen Luh/Truc Vu Minh (eds.):Preußendämmerung. Die Abdankung der Hohenzollern und das Ende Preußens, Heidelberg 2019.
Updated and extended translation: Useful Idiots. The Hohenzollern and Hitler, in: Historical Research, August 2020 (see for Hohenzollern restitution claims: https://www.ias.edu/ideas/urbach-hohenzollern) - Wer die Queen anschaut, sieht britische Geschichte, in: Bettina Musall/Eva-Maria Schnurr (eds.), Britanniens Krone, DVA Munich 2015
- The Creative Consort: New Sources on Prince Albert, in: Charles Beem and Miles Taylor (eds.), The Man Behind the Throne: The Male Consort in History, London 2015
- Introduction, in: Jonathan Haslam; Karina Urbach (eds.), Secret Intelligence and the International Relations of Europe in the 20thC, Stanford University Press 2013
- In defence of Albert. An Introduction, in: Theodore Martin, Life of the Prince Consort, London 2012
- Das Viktorianische Wunderland, in: DAMALS, November Issue 11/2011
- ‘Man muss seine Angst zähmen’, in Simone Fässler (ed.): Ilse Aichinger, Es muss gar nichts bleiben. Interviews 1952-2005, Vienna 2011
- ‘Netzwerk’, in: Michael Maaser und Gerrit Walther (eds.), Bildung: Ziele und Formen, Traditionen und Systeme, Medien und Akteure, Stuttgart 2010
- ‘Bismarck: Der Kriegsdienstverweigerer als Kriegsherr’, in: Simms/Urbach (eds.), Statesmen and War, München 2010
- ‘Royal Kinship’, in: Karina Urbach (ed.), Royal Kinship. British-German Family Networks 1815-1914, München 2008 pp 13-23
- ‘Moscow is making war on England’. Politische Ängste und antidemokratische Konzepte britischer Eliten in der Zwischenkriegszeit’, in: Christoph Gusy (ed.), Demokratie in der Krise: Europa in der Zwischenkriegszeit, Interdisziplinäre Studien zu Recht und Staat, Baden Baden 2008, pp. 144-154
- ‘Introduction’ and ‘Age of no Extremes? The British aristocracy between the House of Lords and the Mosley Movement,’ in: Karina Urbach (ed.), European Aristocracies and the Radical Right. 1918-1939, Oxford University Press 2007, pp. 1-12 and 53-71
- ‘Das Bismarck-Bild in Großbritannien’, in: Klaus Hildebrand/Edward Kolb (eds.): Otto von Bismarck im zeitgenössischen Urteil Europas, , Paderborn 2005, pp. 167-181
- ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service: Gladstone, Ireland and Pope Leo XIII, 1881-1885/86’, in: Vincent Viaenne (Hg.): The Vatican, Catholic Opinion and the International Order at the Time of Leo XIII (1878-1903), Löwen 2005
- ‘Standesherr, Mediatisierter Adel, Mediatisierung, Kolonialadel, Verein der deutschen Standesherren, St. Michael-Verein deutscher Edelleute, Verein katholischer Edelleute, leisure class, Depossedierung’ in: Eckart Conze (Hg.): Kleines Adelslexikon, München 2005. Pp 220-21; 163-64; 232; 214-215; 232-233; 154; 60-61
- ‘Prince Albert and Lord Palmerston: Battle Royal’, in: Franz Bosbach and John Davis, Prince Albert – A Wettin in Britain, München 2004. (also published in David Brown and Miles Taylor (eds.), Palmeston Studies, Vol. 1, Southampton 2007, pp. 127-143
- ‘Diplomat, Höfling, Verbandsfunktionär. Süddeutsche Standesherren 1880-1945’, in: Markus Denzel/Günther Schulz, Elitenforschung: Adel im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, Büdinger Gespräche, 2004, pp. 353-375
- ‘Houston Stewart Chamberlain und Prince Max von Baden’, in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 2004. (with Bernd Buchner). Pp. 121-177
- ‘Süddeutsche Standesherren und der Erste Weltkrieg,’ in: Monika Wienfort/Eckart Conze (eds.), Adelsgeschichte als Gesellschaftsgeschichte. Deutschland im europäischen Vergleich im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, München 2003, pp. 323-351
- ‘Adel versus Bürgertum. überlebens- und Aufstiegsstrategien im deutsch-britischen Vergleich.’ in: Franz Bosbach/Keith Robbins/Karina Urbach (eds.), Geburt oder Leistung ? Birth or Talent ? The Formation of Elites in a British-German Comparison, München 2003, pp.25-42
- ‘Constantin Rößler,’ in: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften (ed.), Neue Deutsche Biographie, München 2003, p. 750
- ‘Das schwarze Buch. Kollektive Paranoia im Ersten Weltkrieg’, in: Andreas Fahrmeir/Sabine Freitag (eds.), Mord und andere Kleinigkeiten, München 2001 (translated into Turkish: Cinayet ve diger Ufak Tefek Isler, Istanbul 2002)
- ‘Zeitgeist als Ortsgeist. Die Emigration als Schlüsselerlebnis deutscher Historiker,’ in: Hermann Hiery (ed.): Der Zeitgeist und die Historie, Dettelbach 2001. Pp 161-181
Review articles
- Flirting with Hitler. Biographies of the German and British Nobility in the Interwar Years, Review Article, Bulletin of the German Historical Institute, May 2007, pp. 64-75
- ‘Diplomatic History since the Cultural Turn’, in: Historical Journal, Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 991-997
- ‘Between Saviour and Villain: 100 years of Bismarck Biographies,’ in: Historical Journal, Vol. 41, 1998. Pp. 1141-1160 (translated for Chinesische Deutschland Studien, Shanghai 3/2000, p.38 ff).
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