Professor Paul Betts

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Professor Paul Betts
Professor of Modern European History
St Antony's College
01865 (2)74534
paul.betts@sant.ox.ac.uk

My research and publications center on Modern European Cultural History in general and 20th Century German History in particular.  I am especially interested in the relationship between culture and politics over the course of the century, and have worked on the themes of material culture, cultural diplomacy, photography, memory and nostalgia, human rights and international justice, death and changing notions of private life.

 

See page on St Antony's College website

My published work includes the books Within Walls:  Private Life in the German Democratic Republic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010; paperback, 2012), which was awarded the Fraenkel Prize in Contemporary History by the Wiener Library, and The Authority of Everyday Objects:  A Cultural History of West German Industrial Design (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004; paperback, 2007). 

I have also co-edited seven volumes:

  • The Ethics of Seeing: Photography and 20th Century German History (Berghahn, 2017), with Jennifer Evans and Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann
  • Religion, Science and Communism in Cold War Europe (Palgrave, 2016), with Stephen A. Smith
  • Heritage in the Modern World:  Historical Preservation in International Perspective, Past & Present Supplement 10 (OUP, 2015), with Corey Ross
  • Years of Persecution, Years of Extermination:  Saul Friedländer and the Future of Holocaust Studies (Continuum, 2010), with Christian Wiese
  • Between Mass Death and Individual Loss: The Place of the Dead in Twentieth-Century Germany (Berghahn Books, 2008; pb, 2011), with Alon Confino and Dirk Schumann
  • Socialist Modern:  East German Everyday Culture and Politics (University of Michigan Press, 2008), with Katherine Pence
  •  Pain and Prosperity:  Reconsidering Twentieth Century German  History (Stanford University Press, 2003), with Greg Eghigian

Co-Curator, traveling exhibition and catalogue, Tito in Africa:  Picturing Solidarity, Museum of Yugoslavia, Belgrade (June-September 2017), Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford (November 2017-March 2018), Die Wende Museum, Los Angeles (Spring 2019). 

Co-Investigator, “Socialism Goes Global: Connecting the Second and Third Worlds,” 4 Year AHRC-Funded Collaborative Grant, with 6 other international institutions, 2014-2018.

I was Chair of the German History Society (2011-2014), and co-edited the journal German History, 2004-2009.  Since 2009 I have served on the Editorial Board of Past & Present.

I am Series Editor of New Directions in German History, Berghahn Books, 2012-, and was Series Co-Editor, St Antony’s Series, Palgrave Macmillan 2013-2016.  

I was Director of St Antony’s European Studies Centre, 2015-2017

Currently I am researching a new project on changing notions of civilization In Europe after 1945.  

  • The Ethics of Seeing Photography and Twentieth-Century German History

    2018
    |
    Book
    The Ethics of Seeing brings together an international group of scholars to explore the complex relationship between the visual and the historic in German history.
    History

  • The Intimacy of Revolution: 1989 in Pictures

    2018
    |
    Chapter
    |
    The Ethics of Seeing Photography and Twentieth-Century German History
    The Ethics of Seeing brings together an international group of scholars to explore the complex relationship between the visual and the historic in German history.
    History

  • Universalism and its Discontents: Humanity as a 20th Century Concept

    2016
    |
    Chapter
    |
    Humanity A History of European Concepts in Practice From the Sixteenth Century to the Present
    This volume investigates the development of the concepts and practices of “humanity” from the sixteenth century up to the present.
    Fiction

  • Religion, Science and Cold War Anti-Communism: The 1949 Cardinal Mindszenty Show Trial

    2016
    |
    Chapter
    |
    Science, Religion and Communism in Cold War Europe
    Religion, Science and Communism in Cold War Europe is the first scholarly effort to explore the delicate interface of religion, science and communism in Cold War Europe.
    History

  • Science, Religion and Communism in Cold War Europe

    2016
    |
    Book
    Religion and science were fundamental aspects of Eastern European communist political culture from the very beginning, and remained in uneasy tension across the region over the decades. While both topics have long attracted a great deal of scholarly attention, they almost invariably have been studied discretely as separate stories. Religion, Science and Communism in Cold War Europe is the first scholarly effort to explore the delicate interface of religion, science and communism in Cold War Europe. It brings together an international team of researchers who address this relationship from a number of national viewpoints and thematic perspectives, ranging from mysticism to social science, space exploration to the socialist lifecycle, and architectural heritage to pop culture.

  • Humanity's New Heritage: Unesco and the Rewriting of World History

    2015
    |
    Journal article
    |
    Past & Present

  • Heritage in the Modern World: Historical Preservation in Global Perspective

    2015
    |
    Book

  • The Warden of World Heritage: UNESCO and the Rescue of the Nubian Monuments

    2015
    |
    Journal article
    |
    Past & Present

  • The Politics of Plenty: Consumerism and Communism

    2014
    |
    Chapter
    |
    The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism
    The thirty-five essays in this Handbook, written by an international team of scholars, draw on this new material to offer a global history of communism in the twentieth century.
    History

  • The Politics of Plenty: Consumerism in Communist Societies

    2014
    |
    Chapter
    |
    The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism
    Draws on documentation released since the fall of the Soviet Union to offer a global history of communism in the twentieth century.
    Business & Economics
    • More

 

I currently teach:

FHS: Masters:
General History XIII 1914-1945

Europe in the Twentieth Century, 1914-1989: National, Transnational International Histories 
General History XIV 1941-1973

Theories and Methods 
Cold War Europe: Further Subject  
Revolutions of 1989: Special Subject   
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