I Love Eugen Weber!

[On the Road]

the historian behind the series "The Western Tradition", produced by WGBH Boston. It's a series of half-hour lectures covering the whole sweep of Western civilization from prehistory to the present. It's very low tech -- a straight podium lecture interspered with still pictures. It's a two-term video course in some colleges, but I just catch it on cable whenever.

Weber is the history professor I wish I had had in college. Succint, penetrating, insightful, masterful and interested in the material. Guys like this inspire me.

I just listened to his take on the American revolution, discussing the mixture of idealism and pragmatism, the places where Democratic ideals fell short, and (most interesting to me) the place of America in the European imagination, including a lot of fanciful misunderstanding.

He's also written some books on France and one on the history of apocolyptic beliefs. Anyone ever read him?

[nealmhughes]

1. Peasants into Frenchmen. It is a great look at the making of France

as a modern nation state instead of an amalgam of provinces with various languages -- much less diatects! -- and the role of universal military service, better farm to market roads and railroads amongst others to complete the transformation.
There are some great ancedotes in the book and some rather florid prose in his denigration of deeply rural areas of France outside the Ile de France, but one can read the book as a celebration of "small history" within his purported larger view!
Let me find my review and I'll email it to you.

[nealmhughes]

2. Peasants into Frenchmen. It is a great look at the making of France

as a modern nation state instead of an amalgam of provinces with various languages -- much less diatects! -- and the role of universal military service, better farm to market roads and railroads amongst others to complete the transformation.
There are some great ancedotes in the book and some rather florid prose in his denigration of deeply rural areas of France outside the Ile de France, but one can read the book as a celebration of "small history" within his purported larger view!
Let me find my review and I'll email it to you.

[Adsos Letter]

3. I have his work on apocalypses

titled (oddly enough) "Apocalypses: Prophecies, Cults, and Millennial Beliefs through the Ages", and it is a very good read. If you are interested in that approach to the subject you really should check out "When Time Shall Be No More" by Boyer, and just about anything by Bernard McGinn, currently the Godfather of apocalyptic studies. He has been a prolific writer; two that I have enjoyed are "ANTICHRIST" and "Visions of the End".

[HamdenRice]

4. He died just a few weeks ago

I remember watching the Western Tradition episode about how the Byzantines bamboozled the early Russians with stage tricks that caused the emporer to float in the air on his throne.

He had quite a wry sense humor under many of his lectures!