Jay Murray Winter (born May 28, 1945) is an American historian and author. He is the Charles J. Stille Professor of History at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

. Winter is also affiliated with the

Museum of the Great War The Museum of the Great War () located near the heart of the World War I Somme battlefields, is housed within the Château de Péronne, a castle in the town of Péronne, France. Péronne was under German occupation during the war, and inhabitants ...

in Peronne,

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, a research center and museum of World War I in European cultural history.

Education

He obtained his A.B. at Columbia and his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

Research

Winter focuses his research on

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

and its impact on the 20th century. His other interests include remembrance of war in the 20th century, such as memorial and mourning sites, European

population decline Population decline, also known as depopulation, is a reduction in a human population size. Throughout history, Earth's total world population, human population has estimates of historical world population, continued to grow but projections sugg ...

, the causes and institutions of war, British popular culture in the era of the First World War, and the

Armenian genocide The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenians, Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was implemented primarily t ...

of 1915. Winter's earlier work largely focused on social history, including ''The Great War and the British People'' (1986) focuses on the war's demographic impact on the British population. In more recent works he has taken the approach of a cultural historian, most notably in ''Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning'' (1995) where he advocates a more transnational focus for studying the war and European culture. In this book, he analyzes the various ways the people of Germany, France and Great Britain mourned their losses during and after the war. Jay Winter was co-producer, co-writer and chief historian for the

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

series "

The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century ''The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century'' is a 1996 documentary series that aired on PBS. It chronicles World War I over eight episodes. It was narrated by Salome Jens. In the UK, the programme was renamed ''1914-18'' and was narra ...

," which won an

Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the year, each with their own set of rules and award categor ...

, a

Peabody Award The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Foster Peabody, George Peabody, honor what are described as the most powerful, enlightening, and in ...

and a

Producers Guild of America Award Producer(s), The Producer(s), or co-producer(s) may refer to: Occupations *Producer (agriculture), a farm operator *Producer, a stakeholder of economic production * Film producer, supervises the making of films **Executive producer, contributes ...

for best television documentary in 1997. At Yale, he teaches a lecture course entitled "Europe in the Age of Total War, 1914-1945," in which he argues that

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, and the inter-war period, are better understood as one "European Civil War." He also teaches a seminar entitled "The First World War." He also worked with American demographer Michael S. Teitelbaum on high levels of migration toward countries experiencing fairly low fertility rates (''The Fear of Population Decline'', 1986 and ''A Question of Numbers'', 1998).

Works

*''Socialism and the Challenge of War: Ideas and Politics in Britain, 1912-18'' (Routledge, 1974) *''The Fear of Population Decline'' (with Michael S. Teitelbaum) (Academic Press, 1986) *''The Great War and the British People'' (Harvard University Press, 1986) *''The Experience of World War I'' (Macmillan, 1988) *''Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History'' (Cambridge University Press, 1995) *''1914-1918: The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century'' (1996) *''A Question of Numbers'' (with Michael S. Teitelbaum) (1998) *''War and Remembrance in the Twentieth Century'' (Cambridge University Press, 1999, editor) *'' America and the Armenian Genocide of 1915'' (Cambridge University Press, 2003, editor) * editor with Antoine Prost. ''The Great War in history: debates and controversies, 1914 to the present'' (Cambridge University Press, 2005). *''Remembering War: The Great War between History and Memory in the 20th Century'' (Yale University Press, 2006) *''Dreams of Peace and Freedom: Utopian Moments in the 20th Century'' (Yale University Press, 2008) *''René Cassin and Human Rights: From the Great War to the Universal Declaration'' (with

Antoine Prost Antoine Marie François Prost (29 October 1933) is a French historian who served as Professor Emeritus of History, University of Paris Panthéon-Sorbonne. He specialises in 20th-century French history, in particular the First World War. Early ...

) (Cambridge University Press, 2013) * editor. ''The Cambridge History of the First World War: Volume 1, Global War'' (Cambridge University Press, 2016) *''War Beyond Words: Languages of Remembrance from the Great War to the Present'' (Cambridge University Press, 2017) *''The Day the Great War Ended, 24 July 1923: The Civilianization of War'' (Oxford University Press, 2022)

References

Sources

* Oliver, Lizzie. "Jay Winter, War Beyond Words: Languages of Remembrance from the Great War to the Present." ''Journal of Contemporary History'' 55.2 (2020): 443-445. * Winter, Jay. "Learning the Historian’s Craft" (H-Diplo 13 November 2020
online autobiography

External links

Official page at Yale
on PBS.org {{DEFAULTSORT:Winter, Jay 1945 births Living people Yale University faculty Columbia College (New York) alumni Academic staff of the European University Institute American military historians American male non-fiction writers Alumni of the University of Cambridge Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters Historians of World War I