Geoff Eley

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Geoff Eley (born May 4, 1949 in Burton-upon-Trent , Staffordshire ) is a British historian of German history . He is the Karl Pohrt Distinguished University Professor at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor .

Life

Geoff Eley studied history at Balliol College of Oxford University and received his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Sussex in 1974. He taught at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor , at the Faculty of History since 1979 and at the Department of German Studies since 1997.

Eley's early works refer to radical imperialist Germany and fascism , but they now also include theoretical and methodological reflection on historiography and the history of the political left in Europe.

Eley is best known for his early study The Peculiarities of German History (first published in German as: "Mythen deutscher Geschichtsschreibung" in 1980), co- authored by David Blackbourn (also a British historian currently teaching at Vanderbilt University ), which criticized the Sonderweg thesis in German historiography. Your criticism is based on the three basic ideas that a special path would presuppose a normal path from which it differs, which then leads to the problem of having to define a quasi-dogmatic normal path. They also reject the thesis that at some point in history the bourgeoisie must necessarily make a revolution in order to take over rule. They argue that in the German Empire (1871 to 1918) the citizenship practically formed the ruling elite into citizens themselves and, above all, was able to assert its economic interests. They also point out that in England, too, the bourgeoisie did not gain power alone. They also warn against looking back on German history as necessarily heading towards the Third Reich, since one then gets a tunnel view backwards into history from the goal and only sees everything running towards this one point.

His most successful book is Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850-2000 . It has been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Serbian, Korean, Turkish and Greek. He recently published several articles on fascism entitled Nazism as Fascism: Violence, Ideology, and the Ground of Consent in Germany, 1930-1945 in the Routledge Press.

Works

(Selection)

  • Nazism as Fascism: Violence, Ideology, and the Ground of Consent in Germany, 1930-1945 . London: Routledge, 2013 ISBN 978-0415812634
  • After the Nazi Racial State: Difference and Democracy in Germany and Europe . Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0472033447
  • The Future of Class in History: What's Left of the Social? (with Keith Nield). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0472069644
  • A Crooked Line: From Cultural History to the History of Society . Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005. ISBN 0472069047
  • Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850-2000 . New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. ISBN 0195044797
  • Reshaping the German Right: Radical Nationalism and Political Change after Bismarck . London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980; new ed. 1991. ISBN 0472081322
  • Wilhelminism, nationalism, fascism: on historical continuity in Germany . Münster: Verlag Westfälisches Dampfboot, 1991. ISBN 3924550476
  • Review article: "Labor History, Social History, Alltagsgeschichte : Experience, Culture, and the Politics of the Everyday - a New Direction for German Social History?" The Journal of Modern History Vol. 61, No. June 2, 1989
  • From Unification to Nazism: Reinterpreting the German Past . London: Routledge, 1986. ISBN 0415084881
  • The Peculiarities of German History (with David Blackbourn). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984. ISBN 0198730578

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ VITA GEOFF ELEY. LSA College of Literature, Science and the Arts, accessed July 7, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Eley, Geoff
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British historian of German history
DATE OF BIRTH May 4, 1949
PLACE OF BIRTH Burton-upon-Trent , Staffordshire