Professor Richard Evans (born 1947) is a British historian of Germany. Year 1947 ( MCMXLVII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1947 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located See also History An historian is an individual who studies and writes about History, and is regarded as an Authority on it Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. He was born in London, of Welsh parentage, and is now Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Gonville & Caius College. The University of Cambridge (often Cambridge University) located in Cambridge, England, is the second-oldest university in the Gonville and Caius College Cambridge is a constituent College of Cambridge University, one of the world's most academically respected institutions He has also taught at the University of Stirling, University of East Anglia and Birkbeck College, London. The University of Stirling founded in 1967 in Stirling, Scotland. The University of East Anglia is a campus-based University located in Norwich, England, and founded in 1963 Birkbeck University of London, sometimes referred to by its former (and still legal name Birkbeck College or by the abbreviation BBK, is a constituent college

Early life

Evans received his education at the Forest School in Walthamstow and Jesus College, Oxford. Forest School is an Independent school on the edge of Epping Forest, in Walthamstow in North East London, in the UK. This article is about a town For the album by East 17 see Walthamstow (album. Jesus College (in full Jesus College in the University of Oxford of Queen Elizabeth's Foundation) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of His first teaching position was at the University of Stirling between 1972 and 1976 where he taught a final year unit entitled 'Weimar Germany and the Third Reich', despite another member of department, Peter D. The University of Stirling founded in 1967 in Stirling, Scotland. Stachura, teaching another final year unit on 'Adolf Hitler and National Socialism'.

Career as a historian

He was drawn to German history in the late 1960s because of what he saw as parallels between the Vietnam War and German imperalism. The 1960s decade refers to the years from the beginning of 1960 to the end of 1969 The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, or the Vietnam Conflict, occurred in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia Evans was much influenced by the Sonderweg view of continuity of German history of Fritz Fischer. Sonderweg (literally "special path" is a controversial theory in German Historiography that considers the German -speaking lands or the country Fritz Fischer ( March 5, 1908 &ndash December 1, 1999) was a German historian best known for his analysis of the Causes of World War I Evans' main interests are in social history and he is much influenced by the Annales School. Social history is an area of historical study considered by some to be a Social science that attempts to view historical evidence from the point of view of developing The Annales School (aˈnal(ə in French is a style of Historiography developed by French Historians in the 20th century He largely agrees with Fischer that the way that German society developed in the 19th century led to the rise of Nazi Germany, although Evans takes pains to point out that this outcome was one among many possibilities and was not inevitable. Nazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany under the regime of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers For Evans, the values of the 19th century German middle class had the seeds of National Socialism already germinating. The 19th century of the Common Era began on January 1, 1801 and ended on December 31, 1900, according to the Gregorian calendar Nazism, which was a short name for National Socialism (Nationalsozialismus refers primarily to the Ideology and practices of the National Socialist German

In the 1980s, Evans played a prominent role in the Historikerstreit. The Historikerstreit (“historians' quarrel” was an intellectual and political controversy in West Germany about the way the Holocaust should be interpreted in Evans took issue with the historical work and theories of Ernst Nolte, Joachim Fest, Andreas Hillgruber, Michael Stürmer and Klaus Hildebrand, all of whom he described as seeking to white-wash the German past. Ernst Nolte (born 11 January 1923) is a German Historian and Philosopher, whose primary interest is the comparative study of Joachim Clemens Fest ( December 8, 1926 &ndash September 11, 2006) German historian journalist critic and editor is best known for Andreas Fritz Hillgruber (January 18 1925 - May 8 1989 was a conservative West German Historian. Michael Stürmer (born September 29 1938) is a German historian Klaus Hildebrand (born 1941 Bielefeld, Germany) is a German conservative Historian whose area of expertise is 19th-20th German In addition, in his book about the Historikerstreit, In Hitler's Shadow, Evans attacked the historical work of Robert Conquest, Hugh Thomas, Gertrude Himmelfarb, and Geoffrey Rudolph Elton, all of whom Evans viewed as part of a neo-conservative historical trend. Dr George Robert Ackworth Conquest (born July 15 1917) British Historian, became a well known writer and researcher on the Soviet Union Hugh Thomas Baron Thomas of Swynnerton (born October 21, 1931 in Windsor) is a British Historian. Gertrude Himmelfarb (born August 8 1922) also known as Bea Kristol, is an American Historian known for her studies of the Intellectual Sir Geoffrey Rudolph Elton ( 17 August 1921 &ndash 3 December 1994) was a British Historian of the Tudor period. Neoconservatism (or Neocon is a Right-wing political philosophy that emerged in the United States from the rejection of the Social liberalism, Moral relativism

He is perhaps best known for his role as expert witness for the American historian Deborah Lipstadt when she was sued for libel by the British historian David Irving. Deborah Esther Lipstadt (born March 18 1947 New York City) is an American Historian and author of the book Denying the Holocaust. David John Cawdell Irving (born 24 March 1938 is a British writer specializing in the Military history of World War II. His book Telling Lies About Hitler describes the trial, his role as an expert witness, and the study he made of Irving's work.

One of his most famous works is In Defence of History, a book in defence of the study of history against postmodernist theories that hold the study of history to be outmoded and no longer useful. Postmodernism literally means 'after the modernist movement' While " Modern " itself refers to something "related to the present" the movement of modernism However, Evans stresses throughout his book that some of the criticisms made by postmodernists have been beneficial to history as a whole, in particular that subjectivity is an inevitable and unavoidable part of the historic construct.

He has currently published two volumes of a proposed three volume work on the history of the Third Reich. The final volume is scheduled for October 2008.

Work

• The feminist movement in Germany, 1894-1933, London : Sage Publications, 1976.
• The feminists : women's emancipation movements in Europe, America and Australasia, 1840-1920, London : C. Helm, 1977.
• Society and politics in Wilhelmine Germany edited by R. J. Evans, London : Croom Helm, 1980, 1978.
• The German family : essays on the social history of the family in nineteenth and twentieth-century Germany, London : C. Helm ; Totowa, N. J.  : Barnes & Noble Books, 1981.
• The German working class, 1888-1933 : the politics of everyday life, London : Croom Helm ; Totowa, N. J.  : Barnes & Noble, 1982.
• The German peasantry : conflict and community in rural society from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries edited by Richard J. Evans and W. R. Lee, London : Croom Helm, 1986.
• The German unemployed : experiences and consequences of mass unemployment from the Weimar Republic to the Third Reich, London : C. Helm, 1987.
• Rethinking German history : nineteenth-century Germany and the origins of the Third Reich, London : Allen and Unwin, 1987.
• Comrades and sisters : feminism, socialism, and pacifism in Europe, 1870-1945, Brighton, Sussex : Wheatsheaf Books ; New York : St. Martin's Press, 1987.
• Death in Hamburg : society and politics in the cholera years, 1830-1910 Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1987.
• The German Underworld : deviants and outcasts in German history, London : Routledge, 1988.
• In Hitler's shadow : West German historians and the attempt to escape from the Nazi past, London : I.B. Tauris, 1989. I B Tauris (usually typeset as IBTauris) is the name of an independent publishing house with offices in London and New York.
• Proletarians and Politics : socialism, protest, and the working class in Germany before the First World War, New York : Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990.
• The German Bourgeoisie : essays on the social history of the German middle class from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century London: Routledge, 1991.
• Rituals of Retribution : capital punishment in Germany 1600-1987, New York : Oxford University Press, 1996.
• Rereading German History : from unification to reunification, 1800-1996, London ; New York : Routledge, 1997.
• Tales from the German Underworld : crime and punishment in the nineteenth century, New Haven [Conn. ] ; London : Yale University Press, 1998.
• In Defense of History, New York : W. W. Norton & Co. , 1999.
• Lying About Hitler : History, Holocaust, and the David Irving trial, New York : Basic Books, 2001.
• Telling Lies About Hitler: The Holocaust, History and the David Irving Trial, Verso Books, 2002.
• The Coming of the Third Reich, London : Allen Lane, 2003.
• The Third Reich in Power, 1933-1939, New York : Penguin, 2005.

See also

• List of Adolf Hitler books

References

• Guttenplan, D. D. The Holocaust On Trial, New York: Norton, 2001.
• Snowman, Daniel "Richard J. Evans" pages 45-47 from History Today Volume 54, Issue #1, January 2004.

External links

• Personal website
• Faculty member webpage at University of Cambridge