Kathy Peiss, author of Information Hunters: When Librarians, Soldiers, and Spies Banded Together in World War II Europe

Cultural historian Kathy Peiss is author of the new book Information Hunters: When Librarians, Soldiers, and Spies Banded Together in World War II Europe (Oxford University Press).

Information Hunters investigates book collecting missions for the purpose of intelligence gathering during World War II. Professor Peiss writes, "An unlikely band of American librarians, archivists, scholars, spies, and soldiers went abroad to aid the Allies' cause, their war work centered on books, documents, and print culture." Information Hunters investigates these collecting missions and their long-lasting impacts on research libraries and on cultures of knowledge.

Professor Peiss will discuss her work in conversation with Professor Roger Chartier (Annenberg Visiting Professor in History and Professor at the Collège de France) and Dr. Arthur Kiron (Schottenstein-Jesselson Curator of Judaica Collections, Penn Libraries).

Kathy Peiss is the Roy F. and Jeannette P. Nichols Professor of American History at the University of Pennsylvania.