Richard Bessel is

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of twentieth century history at the University of York and a member of the

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s of ''

German History The Germani tribes i.e. Germanic tribes are now considered to be related to the Jastorf culture before expanding and interacting with the other peoples. The concept of a region for Germanic tribes is traced to time of Julius Caesar, a Roman gen ...

'' and ''

History Today ''History Today'' is an illustrated history magazine. Published monthly in London since January 1951, it presents serious and authoritative history to as wide a public as possible. The magazine covers all periods and geographical regions and pub ...

''. He is a specialist in the social and political history of modern Germany, the aftermath of the two world wars and the history of policing.Richard Bessel.
University of York. Retrieved 17 June 2015. Bessel earned his BA at

Antioch College Antioch College is a private liberal arts college in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Founded in 1850 by the Christian Connection, the college began operating in 1852 as a non-sectarian institution; politician and education reformer Horace Mann was its ...

and his

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at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. He is a fellow 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 is also a fellow of the

Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies The Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS) is the international research college of the University of Freiburg in Freiburg, Germany. The institute was initially part of the university's proposal for funding in the Excellence Initiative in ...

Reviews

Bessel's ''Germany 1945: From War to Peace'' (2009), dealing with the transition from German defeat at the end of the Second World War to peace, was positively reviewed by Jeffry Diefendorf in

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with the reviewer noting its relevance to modern debates about

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and

nation building Nation-building is constructing or structuring a national identity using the power of the state. Nation-building aims at the unification of the people within the state so that it remains politically stable and viable in the long run. According to ...

. Brian Ladd, in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', noted Bessel's "sober" treatment of the topic and his preference for understatement over pathos. In ''Violence - A Modern Obsession'' (2015), Bessel gave a history of violence in the twentieth century that ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

s reviewer saw as a warning. Ian Bell, in ''The Herald'', noted the denseness of the material and the hellishness of the twentieth century outlined by Bessel, but also that the work was thoughtful rather than being a polemic against violence.Richard Bessel: Violence - A Modern Obsession (Simon & Schuster).
Ian Bell, ''The Herald'', 2 May 2015. Retrieved 17 June 2015.

Selected publications

*''Political Violence and the Rise of Nazism. The Storm Troopers in Eastern Germany 1925–1934''. New Haven:

Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous. , Yale Universi ...

, 1984. *''Life in the Third Reich. Oxford:

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, 1987. *''Germany after the First World War''. Oxford:

, 1993; paperback edition 1995. *''Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Comparisons and contrasts''. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer. Cambridge University Pre ...

, 1996. *''Nazism and War''. New York: Random House, 2004. *''Germany 1945: From War to Peace''.

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest pu ...

and

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News ...

, 2009. *''Violence: A Modern Obsession''. Simon & Schuster, 2015.

References

External links

*http://www.historytoday.com/author/richard-bessel Academics of the University of York Living people Alumni of the University of Oxford Fellows of the Royal Historical Society History Today people 1948 births {{UK-historian-stub