What History Tells: George L. Mosse and the Culture of Modern Europe

Preface

Preface Stanley G. Payne, David J. Sorkin, and John S. Tortorice During his long and prolific career, George L. Mosse ranged farther over the fields of early modern and modern European history than almost any other historian of his time. Beginning as a specialist in the era of the English Reformation, he later turned to modern European cultural history and helped to open a whole series of new areas for research. From 1960 through the 1990s, Mosse anticipated and helped to lead a wide variety of new trends and subspecialties, including the new cultural history; the comparative study of fascism; the history of racism, political symbolism, and mass movements; the history of monuments and of mourning; ethnic and Jewish history; and finally the history of sexuality. No other Europeanist historian of the second half of the twentieth century left a greater imprint on the course of historical scholarship, and none worked in a greater number of thematic areas. In addition to the legacy of his scholarship, his many thousands of undergraduate students, and the thirty-eight historians who completed their doctoral work under his direction, George L. Mosse bequeathed his extensive family estate (finally restored by the German government) to the endowment of the George L. Mosse Program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The Mosse Program is dedicated to maintaining an extensive schedule of exchange fellowships for graduate students and junior faculty between the University of Wisconsin and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, as well as to fostering its own publication series and a variety of other activities to sponsor historical research and teaching in the areas of Mosse’s specialties. This is the first volume in the series to be published under the auspices of the Mosse Program. Following his death in January 1999, in view of the depth and breadth of Mosse’s legacy, some of his closest colleagues and students saw a clear need to investigate the character and extent of his influence on diverse fields of early modern and modern European history. The result was the conference “An Historian ’s Legacy: George L. Mosse and Recent Research on Fascism, Society, and Culture.” It was held at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on September 7–9, 2001. This conference was funded as the annual BurdickVary Symposium of the Institute for Research in the Humanities at Wisconsin , with generous additional aid from Wisconsin’s Anonymous Fund. We wish especially to acknowledge the indispensable contribution of Loretta Freiling, the administrative assistant of the Humanities Institute, who, with her experience, care, and energetic supervision has played such a vital role in the Institute’s conferences over the years. The chapters of this volume are drawn from papers presented originally at the conference in 2001. They explore most, though not quite all, of the major themes of Mosse’s work and help to explain its genesis, its unique character, and also some part of its impact on the world of historical scholarship. They also constitute a scholarly tribute to the passing of an unforgettable teacher, scholar, colleague, and friend. xiv p r e f a c e What History Tells ...