William D. Rubinstein
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William D. Rubinstein (born 12 August 1946) is a
historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...
and
author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...
. His best-known work, ''Men of Property: The Very Wealthy in Britain Since the Industrial Revolution'', charts the rise of the ' super rich', a class he sees as expanding exponentially.


Early life

Rubinstein was born in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, and educated at
Swarthmore College Swarthmore College ( , ) is a private liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the earliest coeducational colleges in the United States. It was established as ...
and
Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...
in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
.


Career

Rubinstein worked at
Lancaster University , mottoeng = Truth lies open to all , established = , endowment = £13.9 million , budget = £317.9 million , type = Public , city = Bailrigg, City of Lancaster , country = England , coor = , campus = Bailrigg , faculty ...
in
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...
from 1974 to 1975, the
Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies an ...
in
Canberra Canberra ( ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The ci ...
during 1976–1978,
Deakin University Deakin University is a public university in Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1974, the university was named after Alfred Deakin, the second Prime Minister of Australia. Its main campuses are in Melbourne's Burwood suburb, Geelong Waurn Ponds, ...
in
Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...
, Australia from 1978 to 1995, and from 1995 to 2011 worked at
Aberystwyth University , mottoeng = A world without knowledge is no world at all , established = 1872 (as ''The University College of Wales'') , former_names = University of Wales, Aberystwyth , type = Public , endowment = ...
, Wales. At Deakin he had a personal chair in history, and at Aberystwyth he was professor of history. He was more recently an adjunct professor at
Monash University Monash University () is a public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Named for prominent World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. The university has ...
in Melbourne. He is an elected Fellow of the
Australian Academy of the Humanities The Australian Academy of the Humanities was established by Royal Charter in 1969 to advance scholarship and public interest in the humanities in Australia. It operates as an independent not-for-profit organisation partly funded by the Australia ...
, the
Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia The Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA) is an independent, non-governmental organisation devoted to the advancement of knowledge and research in the social sciences. It has its origins in the Social Science Research Council of Austr ...
, and of the
Royal Historical Society The Royal Historical Society, founded in 1868, is a learned society of the United Kingdom which advances scholarly studies of history. Origins The society was founded and received its royal charter in 1868. Until 1872 it was known as the Histori ...
. He was President of the Jewish Historical Society of England from 2002 to 2004 and was the editor of the articles on Britain and the Commonwealth (except Canada) in the second (2006) edition of the reference work '' The Encyclopaedia Judaica''. He was foundation editor (1988 to 1995) of the Journal of the Australian Jewish Historical Society (Victoria). He was one of the founders of the
Australian Association for Jewish Studies The Australian Association for Jewish Studies (AAJS) is a scholarly organization in Australia that promotes academic Jewish Studies. AAJS was founded in 1987 and held its first annual conference that year in Melbourne. AAJS is Australia's nati ...
(established 1987), and served as its President in 1989–91. In Australia's Queen's Birthday Honours List 2022 he was awarded the
Medal of the Order of Australia The Order of Australia is an honour that recognises Australian citizens and other persons for outstanding achievement and service. It was established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, on the advice of the Australian Gove ...
(OAM) for services to tertiary education and to Jewish history.


Career as author

Rubinstein is very widely published, essays and articles of his having appeared in various scholarly books and periodicals in Australia and overseas. Books of his have been translated into Finnish, Russian, French, Hebrew, Italian, Chinese, and Japanese. He is particularly known for his research on the wealth-holding classes in modern Britain, making use of probate and other taxation records, in such works as ''Men of Property: The Very Wealthy in Britain Since the Industrial Revolution'' (1981) and ''Capitalism, Culture and Decline in Britain, 1750–1990'' (1991; Japanese translation, 1997). More recently he has co-authored (with Philip Beresford) ''The Richest of the Rich'' (2007), an account of the 250 richest-ever people in British history since the
Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conq ...
. He authored ''The All-Time Australian 200 Rich List'' (2004). A scholar of modern Jewish history, his books on that area include ''A History of the Jews in the English-Speaking World: Great Britain'' (1996) and the controversial work, ''The Myth of Rescue'' (1997; which argues that the allies could not have saved more Jews during the
Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...
. The famous historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. in a quotation provided by the publisher on the book's dust jacket described it as 'a commanding work of historical criticism' adding that 'Professor Rubinstein's rigorous analysis of a terrible time in human history should bring to an end the long and understandably emotional debate about the possibility of saving more victims of Hitler's Holocaust.' Also on the dust jacket is a quotation by William vanden Heuvel, the then chairman of the board of the
Roosevelt Institute The Roosevelt Institute is a liberal American think tank. According to the organization, it exists "to carry forward the legacy and values of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt by developing progressive ideas and bold leadership in the service of rest ...
in New York, describing the book as 'a most important contribution to the discussion of America's role and responsibility regarding the Holocaust'. Holocaust historian David Cesarani called ''The Myth of Rescue'' "a polemic that will quickly fade, while the monumental scholarship it seeks to denigrate will still be consulted by historians and students for years to come." Rubinstein in return called Cesarani's views of the subject "totally lacking in historical balance or context". Rubinstein has appeared in several historical documentaries on the Holocaust, including the BBC's "Secrets of the Dead: Bombing Auschwitz", which premiered in the United States on the PBS network in January 2020. Rubinstein also researches topics discussed by amateur historians but ignored by academics. His ''Shadow Pasts'' (2007) examines such topics as the
assassination of President Kennedy John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated on Friday, November 22, 1963, at 12:30 p.m. CST in Dallas, Texas, while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza. Kennedy was in the vehicle with ...
,
Jack the Ripper Jack the Ripper was an unidentified serial killer active in and around the impoverished Whitechapel district of London, England, in the autumn of 1888. In both criminal case files and the contemporaneous journalistic accounts, the killer w ...
, and the
Shakespeare authorship question Image:ShakespeareCandidates1.jpg, alt=Portraits of Shakespeare and four proposed alternative authors, Oxford, Bacon, Derby, and Marlowe (clockwise from top left, Shakespeare centre) have each been proposed as the true author. poly 1 1 105 1 1 ...
. He also explored the topic of who wrote Shakespeare’s works in a book he co-authored with Brenda James, ''The Truth Will Out'' (2005), which hypothesizes that Sir Henry Neville (c.1562-1615), an Elizabethan Member of Parliament and Ambassador to France, was the real author of Shakespeare’s works. His wife Hilary L. Rubinstein is also a historian.


Bibliography

* ''The Biographical Dictionary of Life Peers'' * ''The Myth Of Rescue'' * ''Genocide: A History'' * ''Britain's Century: A Social and Political History, 1815-1905'' (The Arnold History of Britain) * ''Men of Property: The Very Wealthy in Britain Since the Industrial Revolution'' * ''Capitalism, Culture and Decline in Britain, 1750–1990'' * ''A History of the Jews in the English Speaking World: Great Britain'' (Studies in Modern History) * ''Jews in the Sixth Continent'', Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1987 (contributor and editor) * ''The Jews in Australia: A Thematic History, Volume Two: 1945 to the Present'', William Heinemann Australia (1991) * ''Menders of the Mind: A History of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists 1946-1996'' (co-author with Hilary L. Rubinstein) * ''Philosemitism: Admiration and Support in the English-speaking World for Jews, 1840-1939'' (co-author with Hilary L. Rubinstein) * ''The Jews in the Modern World Since 1750'' (co-author with Hilary L. Rubinstein, Dan Cohn-Sherbok, and Abraham J. Edelheit) * ''Shadow Pasts'' * ''The Richest of the Rich'' (co-author with Philip Beresford) * ''Israel, the Jews and the West: The Fall and Rise of Antisemitism'' * ''The Left, the Right and the Jews'', Croom Helm, London (1982) * ''The End of Ideology and the Rise of Religion: How Marxism and Other Secular Universalistic Ideologies Have Given Way to Religious Fundamentalism'' * ''Who Were the Rich?: 1809 - 1839 v. 1: A Biographical Directory of British Wealth-holders'' (Several further volumes in this series are in print or preparation) * ''The Truth Will Out'' (co-author with Brenda James) * ''Who Wrote Shakespeare's Plays?'' * ''The Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History'', Palgrave Macmillan (2011), (co-author with Michael A. Jolles, Hilary L. Rubinstein) * ''Sir Henry Neville was Shakespeare: The Evidence'', Amberley Publishing (2016),


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rubinstein, W. D. 1946 births Living people 21st-century Australian historians Fellows of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia Fellows of the Australian Academy of the Humanities Fellows of the Royal Historical Society Recipients of the Medal of the Order of Australia Johns Hopkins University alumni Swarthmore College alumni Academics of Lancaster University Academics of Aberystwyth University 20th-century Australian historians Australian National University faculty Deakin University faculty 21st-century British historians 20th-century British historians 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers 20th-century American historians American male non-fiction writers Historians from New York (state) American emigrants to Australia Australian historians of religion American emigrants to the United Kingdom Historians of the United Kingdom British historians of religion Historians of Jews and Judaism Writers from New York City Presidents of the Australian Association for Jewish Studies 20th-century American male writers