The history of emotions began to receive scholarly attention in the 1980s and has been growing as a subfield of history. Studies in the history of emotions address the emotions of historical figures, the interplay of emotions and history, and the role of emotions in the experiences of various subgroups and cultures. Historical studies of emotions have focused on a range of feelings from love and joy, to shame, guilt, and anger. Building on earlier studies, Thomas Kehoe and Michael Pickering approach the emotion of fear in this edited collection. Although the essays in the collection succeed in exploring the theme of fear in many different contexts and spaces and from a variety of perspectives, the concept of fear remains broadly defined, making it difficult to connect the individual pieces into a coherent whole.

Kehoe and Pickering suggest that fear can provide connections among different time periods in the history of the German-speaking world, proposing that fear is shaped by geography, history, and socioeconomic conditions (2). They aim to draw links between constructions of fear in the German-speaking world over time (8) and to show that fear is both universal and culturally and historically specific. The volume includes nine essays presented in chronological order from the seventeenth through the twentieth century, on topics such as fear of French cultural incursion in the seventeenth century, fear of vampires, pestilence, and military incursion on the Ottoman border in the eighteenth century, fear of “Gypsy” itinerancy in the nineteenth century, fear of threatened Jewish masculinity during the Third Reich, and fear of criminals in the form of displaced persons (DPs) in the aftermath of the Second World War.

Common themes such as the central location of the German-speaking world, the fear of external invasion, the multi-ethnic composition of the German-speaking world, the political use of fear to promote unity in the face of an insecure national identity, and the fear of perceived internal threats link many of the essays together. Pickering, Kehoe, Kirsten L. Cooper, Charissa Kurda, and Pierre-Frédéric Weber all shed light on the German fear of incursion, political and cultural domination by others, and the insecurity of German identity. Cooper addresses the fear of the French threat to German culture in the Holy Roman Empire, Pickering looks at the fear of disease and political threats from the Ottoman Empire neutralized by the medicalization of vampires in the Habsburg monarchy, Kurda examines the fear of gypsies’ lack of boundaries and territorial cohesion, Kehoe looks at the fear of displaced persons (DPs), and Weber addresses the German fear of being feared.

Chapters 8, 9, and 10, by Kehoe, Lorke, and Weber focus on the post–World War II period. Kehoe examines German and Allied fears of DPs as criminals, a holdover from the Nazi period, inspired in part by the DPs’ privileged position; Lorke looks at the fear of economic decline and poverty in East and West Germany; and Weber explores fear of the legacy of German aggression and the German fear of that fear which led to a policy of transformation (metanoia) and reconciliation. The types of fear identified in these three chapters—continued fear of foreign “criminals,” fear of deteriorating status, social decline, and poverty, and angst over the fears that other nations had toward Germany—are so dissimilar that they appear contradictory. Did postwar Germans continue to fear the non-German Other caricatured by the Nazis, or did they turn their fears inward by focusing on their own vulnerabilities and shame over the crimes committed during the war?

The fears experienced by German Jewish men explored in Sabastian Huebel's chapter are quite different in nature because they were not imagined, exaggerated, or exploited for political purposes, but rather were based on real experiences, dangers, and threats. The chapter, which raises important points about the relationship between gender and fear, examines an entirely different phenomenon that lacks an obvious connection to the themes of the collection. The focus on masculinity as new and understudied might also be challenged, given that prior to recent interest in Jewish women's experiences in Nazi Germany, studies of German Jews were de facto based on the experiences of men (169). Perhaps looking at gender and fear with attention to both men and women would make for a more balanced contribution, especially considering that there is no essay in the collection focusing on women's experiences.

Dennis Frey's piece on the individual fears of an ordinary German man, rooted in his personal experiences is intriguing, but again it is hard to see how it relates to the rest of the volume. Jacob Berg and Richard Scully's chapter on the images of the Sturmabteilung (SA), which presents findings about the internal struggle between two opposing political camps—the Nazis and their opponents—and shows how both sides used images of the SA for their respective purposes, also lacks a clear connection to the collection's themes. Moreover, the assertion that looking at posters is a new approach was surprising, given the amount of attention paid to Nazi propaganda (126). Perhaps what is new is looking at the way the opposition depicted the SA as a force to be feared and how the Nazis countered that with their own portrayal of the SA as respectable, well-mannered defenders of Germany. Likewise, Lorke raises awareness of the ways both East and West Germany dealt with the fear of poverty and economic decline, but beyond the basic concept of fear, the essay does not have a specific link to the themes of the collection.

In their conclusion, Kehoe and Pickering use the example of German bigotry toward Muslim refugees to relate today's xenophobia to the historical fear of invasion and infiltration by the French, Poles, Jews, vampires, and foreign criminals. They also draw attention to themes such as the fear of transience and the forest as a literal and metaphorical space where fear occurs. They conclude that fear is fluid, changing in different contexts and that it exists between people and communities. They restate that the collection aims to examine constructions and representations of fear—a very broad aim indeed. The unifying themes discussed in the conclusion might have been more effective if presented earlier on in the introduction as a frame of reference.

Although the volume presents multiple perspectives on the role of fear in the German-speaking world, the common thread of fear does not sufficiently connect all of the essays into a coherent whole, and the theme of fear seems forced in some of the pieces. Also, more attention might be given to explaining the changing targets of fear over time. In any collection covering such a broad theme, extensive geographic area, and long timeframe, it is to be expected that many things will get left out. Most notable, though, is the disappearance of Austria from the collection after Pickering's chapter on vampires (chapter 3). Also missing is a consideration of the turn of the century, the First World War and its aftermath, the experiences of women, and a discussion of fear from a psychological standpoint.

Despite these reservations, Kehoe and Pickering's volume has much to offer; it breaks new ground by examining the way fear has played itself out over time and space in the German-speaking world. This topic holds immense relevance not only for German culture but also universally, as fear continues to be leveraged as a political tool throughout the world.