David Abraham (historian)

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David Abraham (born November 9, 1946 in Antwerp ) is an American historian and legal scholar . As a historian, he researched, among other things, German economic history in the 20th century. His legal research interests are immigration and citizenship law. Since 1991 he has been Professor of Law at the University of Miami .

career

Abraham's parents emigrated from Europe to the United States in 1949, and he became an American citizen in 1956. He studied and obtained his doctorate at the University of Chicago ( BA 1968, MA 1972, Ph.D. 1977), in the meantime at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1970–1971). From 1977 to 1985 he was an assistant professor of history at Princeton University , after which he taught at the New School for Social Research in New York.

After the controversy over industrial policy in Weimar, Abraham largely withdrew from the historical discourse and began studying law in 1986 , which he successfully completed in 1989 at the University of Pennsylvania with a Juris Doctor degree. Since 1991 he has been Professor of Law at the University of Miami . In jurisprudence, he mainly published on questions of immigration and citizenship law.

He has worked as a visiting professor at the University of Tübingen , Deakin University , the École des Hautes Études in Paris and at the University of Ulster in the Belfast branch. In the spring semester of 2010 he was also a Fellow of the American Academy in Berlin .

Controversy about industrial policy in Weimar

As a historian, his research focus was the German economic history of the 20th century. His volume The Collapse of the Weimar Republic , first published in 1981 and later also translated into German, was controversial in which he analyzes the attempts by medium-sized and large industrial companies to influence Weimar industrial policy in the early 1930s and in particular their joint responsibility for the rise of the NSDAP . Methodologically, his study ties in with Antonio Gramsci's theory of hegemony , the neo-Marxist state theory of Nicos Poulantzas and Claus Offe, and August Thalheimer's theory of Bonapartism , and is related to the monopoly group theory of the orthodox-Marxist history of the GDR. According to this, the seizure of power by the National Socialists was due to rivalries between a more progressive export-oriented and a reactionary, domestically-oriented industrial bloc. The book found recognition in a large number of reviews beyond the subject boundaries. The American political scientist Peter Gourevitch described Abraham's work as “superb” and an important case study on the connection between domestic politics and international economic relations.

On the other hand, Abraham was also heavily criticized. Henry Ashby Turner accused him of manipulating his sources, or at least quoting them improperly. The historian Gerald D. Feldman , who specializes in the history of the Weimar Republic and who initially advocated the publication of the book , also expressed harsh criticism . This criticism has been perceived by various quarters as a campaign or anti-Marxist witch hunt in the style of the McCarthy era . Abraham felt compelled to submit a revised version of his study in 1986, which, however, was also sharply criticized. The historian Peter Hayes, for example, complained that this new edition did not fix the mistakes of the first and contained nothing substantially new. Hans-Ulrich Wehler called Abraham's work “scandalously sloppy” even after the revision.

Fonts

  • The Collapse of the Weimar Republic: Political Economy and Crisis . Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1981, ISBN 0691093563 . Second, improved edition: Holmes & Meyer, New York and London 1986, ISBN 0841910839 .
    • German The collapse of the Weimar Republic . Westfälisches Dampfboot, Münster 1993, ISBN 3924550778 (= theory and history of civil society 5).
  • Conflicts within German Industry and the Collapse of the Weimar Republic . In: Past & Present 88: 1, 1980, pp. 88-128.

literature

  • Jon Wiener: Historians in Trouble. Plagiarism, Fraud, and Politics in the Ivory Tower . The New Press, New York, 2005, pp. 94-106.
  • Gerald D. Feldman: A Collapse in Weimar Scholarship . In: Central European History . 17: 2/3, pp. 159-177.
  • David Abraham: A Reply to Gerald Feldman . In: Central European History . 17: 2/3, pp. 178-244.
  • Peter A. Gourevitch: The Collapse of the Weimar Republic: Political Economy and Crisis. Review . In: American Journal of Sociology, . 88: 4, pp. 777-779.
  • Colin Campbell: A Quarrel Over Weimar Book . In: New York Times , December 23, 1984, online at: http://www.nytimes.com/1984/12/23/arts/a-quarrel-over-weimar-book.html
  • Ulrich Nocken: Weimar history (s). To the new American book “Collapse of the Weimar Republic” . In: Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 71: 4, pp. 505–527.
  • Ulrich Nocken / David Abraham: Again: “Weimar Stories” . In: Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 73: 1, pp. 61–62.
  • Gerald D. Feldman / Volker Berghahn: Why Weimar Fell. To the editor . In: New York Times , September 13, 1987, online at: http://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/13/books/l-why-weimar-fell-628087.html
  • Peter Hayes: History in an Off Key: David Abraham's Second “Collapse” . In: The Business History Review 61: 3, 1987, pp. 452-472.
  • Henry A. Turner: German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler . Oxford University Press, New York, 1985.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b David Abraham , University of Miami School of Law website; CV
  2. ↑ Klaus Hildebrand : The Third Reich. Oldenbourg, Munich 2009, p. 206 f.
  3. ^ Peter Gourevitch: The Collapse of the Weimar Republic: Political Economy and Crisis. Review . In: American Journal of Sociology, 88, No. 4 (1983), p. 777.
  4. ^ Jon Wiener: Professors, Politics and Pop . Verso, London and New York 1991, pp. 63-70.
  5. ^ Peter Hayes: History in an Off Key. David Abraham's Second “Collapse”. In: The Business History Review 61, No. 3 (1987), pp. 452-472.
  6. ^ Hans-Ulrich Wehler: Deutsche Gesellschaftgeschichte , Vol. 4: From the beginning of the First World War to the founding of the two German states 1914–1949. CH Beck Verlag, Munich 2003, p. 1041.
personal data
SURNAME Abraham, David
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American historian and legal scholar
DATE OF BIRTH November 9, 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH Antwerp