Joachim Radkau (born October 4, 1943) is a German historian.

Life

Radkau was born in Oberlübbe, now Hille, Landkreis

Minden Minden () is a middle-sized town in the very north-east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, the greatest town between Bielefeld and Hanover. It is the capital of the district (''Kreis'') of Minden-Lübbecke, which is part of the region of De ...

. Son of a Protestant priest, he studied history in

Münster Münster (; nds, Mönster) is an independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a state di ...

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

(Freie Universität) and

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...

from 1963 to 1968. He was influenced e.g. by

Fritz Fischer Fritz Fischer (5 March 1908 – 1 December 1999) was a German historian best known for his analysis of the causes of World War I. In the early 1960s Fischer advanced the controversial thesis at the time that responsibility for the outbreak of the ...

. His doctorate, which he earned in 1970, treated the role of German immigrants 1933-45 on Franklin D. Roosevelt. From 1971 on he started to teach at

Bielefeld University Bielefeld University (german: Universität Bielefeld) is a university in Bielefeld, Germany. Founded in 1969, it is one of the country's newer universities, and considers itself a "reform" university, following a different style of organization ...

. 1972 till 1974 Radkau wrote together with George W. F. Hallgarten a synopsis of German industry and politics. His views about the role of

Hermann Josef Abs Hermann Josef Abs (born 15 October 1901 in Bonn – died 5 February 1994 in Bad Soden) was a leading German banker and advisor to Chancellor Adenauer. He was a member of the board of directors of Deutsche Bank from 1938 to 1945, as well as of 44 ...

in German negotiations with Israel led to legal claim of

Deutsche Bank Deutsche Bank AG (), sometimes referred to simply as Deutsche, is a German multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York St ...

. In 1980 Radkau received the venia legendi for his study of the rise and crisis of the German nuclear industry.

History of technology The history of technology is the history of the invention of tools and techniques and is one of the categories of world history. Technology can refer to methods ranging from as simple as stone tools to the complex genetic engineering and inf ...

and

Environmental history Environmental history is the study of human interaction with the natural world over time, emphasising the active role nature plays in influencing human affairs and vice versa. Environmental history first emerged in the United States out of th ...

are favorite topics of Radkau. Besides forestry and the role of environmental protection in the German history, including the Third Reich, Radkau researched as well the relation between Nervosität (

Anxiety Anxiety is an emotion which is characterized by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil and includes feelings of dread over anticipated events. Anxiety is different than fear in that the former is defined as the anticipation of a future threat wh ...

) and technical development in the German Empire, adding biographical studies about

Thomas Mann Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...

and

Max Weber Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. His ideas p ...

Awards and honors

*2009: World History Association Book Prize, ''Nature and Power''

Bibliography

* Die deutsche Emigration in den USA. Ihr Einfluß auf die amerikanische Europapolitik 1933-1945. Düsseldorf 1971, * Zus. mit George W. F. Hallgarten: Deutsche Industrie und Politik von Bismarck bis heute. Frankfurt/Köln 1974, * Zus. mit

Imanuel Geiss Imanuel Geiss (9 February 1931 – 20 February 2012) was a German historian. Life Imanuel Geiss was born in Frankfurt am Main, the youngest of the five children of a working-class family affected by the economic crisis. His unemployed fathe ...

(Hrsg.): Imperialismus im 20. Jahrhundert. Gedenkschrift für George W. F. Hallgarten. München 1976, * Aufstieg und Krise der deutschen Atomwirtschaft 1945-1975. Verdrängte Alternativen in der Kerntechnik und der Ursprung der nuklearen Kontroverse. Reinbek 1983, * Zus. mit Ingrid Schäfer: Holz - Ein Naturstoff in der Technikgeschichte. Reinbek 1987, * Technik in Deutschland. Vom 18. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart. Frankfurt/M. 1989, * Das Zeitalter der Nervosität. Deutschland zwischen Bismarck und Hitler. München 1998, * Natur und Macht. Eine Weltgeschichte der Umwelt. München 2000, * Nature and Power: A Global History of the Environment. By Joachim Radkau. Publications of the German Historical Institute Series. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008 * Mensch und Natur in der Geschichte. Leipzig 2002 (Politische Weltkunde, Arbeitsbuch für die Sekundarstufe II) * *

. Die Leidenschaft des Denkens. München 2005, *Aufstieg und Fall der deutschen Atomwirtschaft, with Lothar Hahn (2013).

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Radkau, Joachim 1943 births Living people 20th-century German historians German male non-fiction writers Bielefeld University faculty Environmental historians Historians of technology 21st-century German historians People from Minden-Lübbecke