Rolf Torstendahl (born 9 January 1936, in

Jönköping Jönköping (, ) is a city in southern Sweden with 112,766 inhabitants (2022). Jönköping is situated on the southern shore of Sweden's second largest lake, Vättern, in the province of Småland. The city is the seat of Jönköping Munici ...

) is

emeritus professor ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

of history at the

University of Uppsala Uppsala University ( sv, Uppsala universitet) is a public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation. The university rose to significance durin ...

where he has spent most of his career. He was Sven Warburg professor of history at the

University of Stockholm Stockholm University ( sv, Stockholms universitet) is a public research university in Stockholm, Sweden, founded as a college in 1878, with university status since 1960. With over 33,000 students at four different faculties: law, humanities, so ...

from 1978 to 1980. Torstendahl has a special interest in bureaucratisation, the professionalism of engineers, and

historiography Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians hav ...

. His book ''History-Making: The Intellectual and Social Formation of a Discipline'' (1996) describes the evolution of historical professionalism. He is a fellow of the

Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters ( no, Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi, DNVA) is a learned society based in Oslo, Norway. Its purpose is to support the advancement of science and scholarship in Norway. History The Royal Frederick Unive ...

Selected publications

*''History-Making: The Intellectual and Social Formation of a Discipline''. Uppsala University, Uppsala, 1996. (With I. Veit-Brause) *''State policy and gender system in the two German states and Sweden 1945-1989''. Uppsala University, Uppsala, 1999. *"From all-round to professional education: How young historians became members of an academic community in the nineteenth century." Leidschrift, Leiden: Stichting Leidschrift. 25(1): 17–31, 2010. *''The Birth of Democratic Culture in Late Imperial Russia: reforms and elections to the first two national legislatures, 1905-1907''. Uppsala University, Uppsala, 2012. (With N. Selunskaja) *''The Rise and Propagation of Historical Professionalism''. Routledge, 2014. ( Routledge Approaches to History)

References

1936 births Living people People from Jönköping Uppsala University alumni Uppsala University faculty Stockholm University faculty 20th-century Swedish historians Historiographers Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters 21st-century Swedish historians {{sweden-historian-stub