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Eugen Joseph Weber (April 24, 1925 – May 17, 2007) was a Romanian-born American historian with a special focus on Western world.
Weber became a historian because of his interest in politics, an interest dating back to at least the age of 12. He described his political awakening as a realization of social injustices: "It was my vague dissatisfaction with social hierarchy, the subjection of servants and peasants, the diffuse violence of everyday life in relatively peaceful country amongst apparently gentle folk".Weber, My France, p.2
Weber's books and articles have been translated into several languages. He earned many accolades for his scholarship, including membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, membership to the American Philosophical Society, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies and the Fulbright Program. His 1,300-page Modern History of Europe: Men, Cultures, and Societies from the Renaissance to the Present (1971) was described "a phenomenal job of synthesis and interpretation that reflects Eugen's wide and deep learning," by his UCLA history colleague Hans Rogger. In addition to his distinguished American Awards and honors, he was awarded the Ordre des Palmes Académiques in 1977 for his contribution to French culture.
During World War II, he served with the British Army in Belgium, Germany, and British India between 1943 and 1947, and rising to the rank of captain. Afterward, Weber studied history at the Sorbonne and Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po) in Paris. While in France he met Jacqueline Brument-Roth, marrying her in 1950.
Returning to Britain, Weber entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge, studying French and European history under David Thomson and graduating with a BA in 1950.Lynn Hunt (1 January 2008), "In Memoriam: Eugen Weber (1925–2007)", historians, org. Retrieved 12 May 2021. He remained at Cambridge to study for a PhD, but his dissertation thesis was rejected after the external examiner, Alfred Cobban of the University of London, gave a negative review, saying it lacked sufficient archival sources.
Weber briefly taught at Emmanuel College (1953–1954) and the University of Alberta (1954–1955) before settling in the United States, where he taught first at the University of Iowa (1955–1956) and then, until 1993 on his retirement, at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
Eugen Weber wrote a column titled "LA Confidential" for the Los Angeles Times. He also wrote for several French popular newspapers and, in 1989, presented an American PBS series, The Western Tradition, which consisted of fifty-two lectures of 30 minutes each. He died in Brentwood, Los Angeles, California, aged 82.
Nothing is more concrete than history, nothing less interested in theories or in abstract ideas. The great historians have fewer ideas about history than amateurs do; they merely have a way of ordering their facts to tell their story. It isn't theories they look for, but information, documents, and ideas about how to find and handle them.Eugen Weber, "History Is What Historians Do," The New York Times, July 22, 1984 [2]
His book Apocalypses: Prophecies, Cults, and Millennial Beliefs through the Ages chronicles "apocalyptic visions and prophecies from Zarathustra to yesterday ... . beginning with the ancients of the West and the Orient and, especially ... the Jews and earliest Christians," finding that "an absolute belief in the end of time, when good would do final battle with evil, was omnipresent," inspiring "Crusades, scientific discoveries, works of art, voyages such as those of Columbus, rebellions" and reforms including American abolitionism.
Weber proclaimed in "The Western Tradition" lectures of 1989:
Here we are at the end of the 20th century with a lot of people lonely in a Godless world—and now they are denied not only God but the solid substance of judgment and perception...The world has always been disgracefully managed but now you no longer know to whom to complain.After he traversed the whole spectrum of western thought, tradition, civilization, and progress in The Western Tradition, Weber pointed at some of the profound ancient lessons from the Bible and lamented the fact that many people today do not read it themselves. As an agnostic, Weber viewed the Bible primarily as an important piece of historical literature, calling it: "the epitome of wisdom, violence, high aspiration, and the hurtful achievements of mankind". He concluded his final lecture in the Western Tradition series by praising Western man as Promethean and then with Wordsworth's poetic phrase, "we feel that we are greater than we know."
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