People, Nations and Traditions in a Comparative Frame : Thinking about the Past with Jonathan Steinberg

This book illustrates and celebrates Professor Jonathan Steinberg’s – a celebrated historian of modern Europe, especially Germany, Italy, Austria and Switzerland – contributions to historical practice. Professor Steinberg embraced methodological pluralism and pioneered comparative history, exploring the past through a multi-valent lens that examined the interplay between personalities, nations, and traditions.

If the turn of the twenty-first century was characterised by the ‘history wars’ in which bitter internecine battles raged between different historical schools, Jonathan Steinberg was noteworthy for his methodological pluralism. His own historical worked spanned diplomatic history, military history, the social history of war, biography, social history, banking history, political culture and genocide studies. He often employed a comparative historical approach, which teased out deep historical explanations by examining personalities, nations and traditions simultaneously. This book offers a critical appreciation of his contribution to modern historical practice with contributions by former students and colleagues, whose own interests are as diverse as those of Steinberg himself.