Geoffrey Howard "Geoff" Eley (born 4 May 1949) is a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

-born

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 species; as well as the ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. He studied history at

Balliol College, Oxford Balliol College () is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. Founded in 1263 by nobleman John I de Balliol, it has a claim to be the oldest college in Oxford and the English-speaking world. With a governing body of a master and aro ...

, and received his PhD from the

University of Sussex The University of Sussex is a public university, public research university, research university located in Falmer, East Sussex, England. It lies mostly within the city boundaries of Brighton and Hove. Its large campus site is surrounded by the ...

in 1974. He has taught at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in the Department of History since 1979 and the Department of

German Studies German studies is an academic field that researches, documents and disseminates German language, literature, and culture in its historic and present forms. Academic departments of German studies therefore often focus on German culture, German h ...

since 1997. He now serves as the Karl Pohrt Distinguished University Professor of Contemporary History at

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

. Eley's early work focused on the radical

nationalism Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation, Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Theory, I ...

Imperial Germany The German Empire (),; ; World Book, Inc. ''The World Book dictionary, Volume 1''. World Book, Inc., 2003. p. 572. States that Deutsches Reich translates as "German Realm" and was a former official name of Germany. also referred to as Imperia ...

and

fascism Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hie ...

, but has since grown to include theoretical and methodological reflections on

historiography Historiography is the study of the methods used by historians in developing history as an academic discipline. By extension, the term ":wikt:historiography, historiography" is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiog ...

and the history of the political left in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

. Eley is particularly well known for his early study, ''The Peculiarities of German History'' (first published in German as ''Mythen deutscher Geschichtsschreibung'' in 1984), co-authored with David Blackbourn (a fellow Briton, who now teaches at

Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private university, private research university in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provide ...

), which challenged the orthodoxy in German social history known as the Sonderweg thesis. His most successful book is ''Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850-2000'', which has been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Serbian, Korean, Turkish and Greek. Recently, he published a collection of essays on

called ''Nazism as Fascism: Violence, Ideology, and the Ground of Consent in Germany, 1930-1945'' with Routledge Press.

Works

(This list does not include edited volumes.) * ''Nazism as Fascism: Violence, Ideology, and the Ground of Consent in Germany, 1930-1945''. London: Routledge, 2013 * ''After the Nazi Racial State: Difference and Democracy in Germany and Europe''. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009. * ''The Future of Class in History: What's Left of the Social?'' (with Keith Nield). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007. * ''A Crooked Line: From Cultural History to the History of Society''. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005. * ''Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850-2000''. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. * ''Reshaping the German Right: Radical Nationalism and Political Change after Bismarck''. London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980; new ed. 1991. * ''Wilhelminismus, Nationalismus, Faschismus: Zur historischen Kontinuität in Deutschland''. Münster: Verlag Westfälisches Dampfboot, 1991. * Review article: "Labor History, Social History, ''Alltagsgeschichte'': Experience, Culture, and the Politics of the Everyday--a New Direction for German Social History?" ''The Journal of Modern History'' Vol. 61, No. 2, June 1989 * ''From Unification to Nazism: Reinterpreting the German Past''. London: Routledge, 1986. * ''The Peculiarities of German History'' (with David Blackbourn). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984.

External links

Faculty page on Eley at the University of Michigan
* Geoff Eley
"No Need to Choose: History from Above, History from Below"
''Viewpoint Magazine'', June 2014. {{DEFAULTSORT:Eley, Geoff Alumni of the University of Sussex British Marxist historians University of Michigan faculty 1949 births Living people Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford Historians of Germany Historians of fascism Political historians Historians of Nazism 20th-century English historians 21st-century English historians 20th-century English male writers 21st-century English male writers People from Burton upon Trent