Joachim Remak (1920 Berlin – Santa Barbara, Cal., 2001) was a historian of Modern Europe, especially of Germany and World War I. Born in

Berlin, Germany Berlin is the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, as measured by population within city limits having gained this stat ...

, he fled

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

in 1938 for the United States. He earned his B.A. and M.A. in history at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, in 1942 and 1946. He worked for the State Department in Germany and the United Kingdom and then returned to the United States for doctoral study and earned his Ph.D. in history at Stanford University in 1955; his dissertation dealt with "Germany and the United States, 1933–1939." He married Roberta Anne Remak (a 1946 graduate of Stanford) in 1948. He taught at Stanford as an Instructor for three years and then took up a tenure-track position in the History Department at

Lewis and Clark College Lewis & Clark College is a private liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon. Originally chartered in 1867 as the Albany Collegiate Institute in Albany, Oregon, the college was relocated to Portland in 1938 and in 1942 adopted the name Lewis & Cl ...

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populou ...

, in 1958. He gained tenure there and served as Department Chair before being called to the growing History Department at the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the ...

in 1965. The next year he was awarded a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

. A popular classroom lecturer as well as a prolific scholar, Joe Remak was promoted to Full Professor and served as Department Chair at the

, from 1977 to 1984. He published his first book, ''Sarajevo, the Story of a Political Murder'' (Criterion Books), in 1959 (and the book won the Borden Award from Stanford University's

Hoover Institution The Hoover Institution (officially The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace; abbreviated as Hoover) is an American public policy think tank and research institution that promotes Economic liberty, personal and economic liberty, Free ...

in 1960). His published his next book, ''The Gentle Critic: Theodor Fontane and German Politics, 1848–1898'' (Syracuse University Press), in 1964. His article “The Healthy Invalid: How Doomed the Habsburg Empire?” which appeared in ''The Journal of Modern History'' 41 (1969): 127-143 won the American Historical Association's Higby Prize. His article "1914—The Third Balkan War: Origins Reconsidered," The ''Journal of Modern History'' 43 (1971): 353–366, offered a revisionist historiographic analysis of the origins of World War I. Remak also published several textbooks, including: ''The Origins of World War I, 1871–1914'' (Holt, Rinehart, and Wilson, 1967), ''The Nazi Years: A Documentary History'' (Simon and Schuster, 1969), ''The First World War: Causes, Conduct, Consequences'' (J. Wiley & Sons, 1971), and ''The Origins of the Second World War'' (Prentice Hall, 1976). Remak edited ''War, Revolution and Peace'' (University Press of America, 1987) and co-edited ''Another Germany: A Reconsideration of the Imperial Era'' (Westview Press, 1988). His last book was entitled ''A Very Civil War'' (Westview Press, 1992) and analyzed the Swiss

Sonderbund War The Sonderbund War (german: Sonderbundskrieg, fr , Guerre du Sonderbund, it , Guerra del Sonderbund) of November 1847 was a civil war in Switzerland, then still a relatively loose confederacy of cantons. It ensued after seven Catholic canto ...

of 1847. Professor Remak died on June 16, 2001.

Publications

*''Sarajevo, the Story of a Political Murder'' (Criterion Books, 1959). *''The Gentle Critic: Theodor Fontane and German Politics, 1848–1898'' (Syracuse University Press, 1964). *“The Healthy Invalid: How Doomed the Habsburg Empire?” ''The Journal of Modern History'' 41 (1969): 127–143. *"1914—The Third Balkan War: Origins Reconsidered," ''The Journal of Modern History'' 43 (1971): 353–366. *''The Origins of World War I, 1871-1914'' (Holt, Rinehart, and Wilson, 1967). *(ed.), ''The Nazi Years: A Documentary History'' (Simon and Schuster, 1969). *''The First World War: Causes, Conduct, Consequences'' (J. Wiley & Sons, 1971). *''The Origins of the Second World War'' (Prentice Hall, 1976). *(ed.), ''War, Revolution and Peace'' (University Press of America, 1987). *(co-edited with Jack Dukes), ''Another Germany: A Reconsideration of the Imperial Era'' (Westview Press, 1988). *''A Very Civil War'' (Westview Press, 1992).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Remak, Joachim 1920 births 2001 deaths Writers from Berlin University of California, Berkeley alumni 20th-century American historians 20th-century American male writers Stanford University alumni American male non-fiction writers German emigrants to the United States

Publications

Further reading

References