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Research

My first monograph examined the actions and motives of a senior German civil servant who served the Nazi regime, with the aim of understanding why someone whose values were primarily traditional acquiesced in, and for long periods enthusiastically supported, such a radical and criminal enterprise.  In 2004 I published a book that analyzed the changing structures and goals of German states through the prism of their policies on citizenship, how they determined which of their inhabitants should share common rights and duties.  The analysis emphasized and sought to explain the radical shifts in policy in the period studied, and why this subject provoked such frequent and bitter conflict.  My current project examines changes that took place in the culture of West Germany after 1945 through an analysis of the work of a leading radio and television journalist, Peter von Zahn.  Zahn's popular weekly radio broadcasts and monthly television documentaries from and about the United States served as vehicles for exploring the future direction of West Germany, since they treated American society as a model both of desirable and undesirable future paths.

Publications

Peter von Zahn über Rassismus in den USA (Peter von Zahn on Racism in the USA) in Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 1-2 (2009).

The Politics of Citizenship in Germany: Ethnicity, Utility and Nationalism (Berg Publishers, 2004).

Description

In a study that begins in the early nineteenth century and reaches the dramatic changes of the 1990s, the author challenges the traditional interpretation of the role of ethnicity. He shows that appeals to ethnic solidarity often masked more political objectives. Other factors affecting the politics of citizenship included German states efforts to mold and improve society and to safeguard their own grip on power; changing conceptions of economic and military utility; the personality and political aims of Bismarck; the international conflict with Britain, France, and Russia; anti-Semitism and the world wars. While other authors have stressed consensus within German society, this account focuses on conflict.

Franz Schlegelberger, vol. 3 of a series entitled Der Unrechtsstaat (Nomos Verlag, 1990).

Teaching

In my classes on European history I explore with students the origins of and reasons for many of the central political institutions and social and cultural forms of the modern world.  Among the themes and subjects of the classes I teach are: the causes and consequences of the industrial revolution; debates regarding the virtues and defects of democratic social and political institutions; the changing forms taken by estate and class boundaries; the development of and changes in the nature of national feeling; ethnic and religious conflict; the changing roles of women; European diplomacy, warfare, and imperialism; debates on the meaning and desirability of progress; and the origins and consequences of Nazism and Communism.

My classes promote the ability to analyze original sources and to write and speak clearly about historical questions.  I seek to achieve these aims in part by modeling analyses of historical problems in my lectures and encouraging, to the extent class size permits, discussion and debate.  Since history encompasses virtually all forms of human activity, and since student interests also are quite varied, I ask students to read selections from a variety of original sources, including memoirs, letters, speeches, poems, novels, encyclicals, political manifestos, demographic statistics, and philosophical essays.

Doctoral Level Supervision Privileges

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• Office: Lawson Hall 2217
• Office Hours: Wednesday 1:30-3:30 pm
• Telephone: 519 661-2111
  Ext: 84977
• e-mail: enathans@uwo.ca