A German Special Path: Critical Social History as a Transatlantic Enterprise, 1945-1989

My current book project "A German Special Path: Critical Social History as a Transatlantic Enterprise, 1945-1989" analyzes the intellectual exchange between German and American historians from the end of World War II to the 1980s. In contrast to the prevailing interpretation—which views American historians of modern Germany as a monolithic group of left-liberal scholars—I emphasize their methodological, interpretive, and political diversity. I also reveal the degree to which the Germans began to associate progress and modernity with the American historical profession. I argue that “American connections” increasingly became an argument in West German historiographical debates, signifying methodological innovation.