Jonathan Sperber (born 26 December 1952) is an American academic and historian who is a professor emeritus at the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Universit ...

and author of modern European History.

Early life and academic career

Jonathan Sperber was born on 26 December 1952 in New York City, to Louis and Ruth Sperber. He attended the Abraham Lincoln High School in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. Sperber was an undergraduate at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

from 1969 to 1973 and went to graduate school at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

. While there, he studied with historian

Leonard Krieger Leonard Krieger (28 August 1918 – 12 October 1990) was an American historian who paid particular attention to Modern Europe, especially Germany. He was influential as an intellectual historian, and particularly for his discussion of historicism. ...

. He received his Ph.D. from Chicago in 1980. He was an archivist at the Leo Baeck Institute in New York from 1979 to 1982, and, after a brief visiting professorship at

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

from 1982 to1984, went to work at the

in 1984, where he still resides. At Missouri, he was assistant professor (1984–87), associate professor (1987–92) and professor of history (1992–2003). He was appointed Curators’ Professor of History in 2003, and served as chair of the history department between 2005–2010. He is a member of the

German Studies Association The German Studies Association (GSA) is an international organization of scholars in history, literature, economics, cultural studies, and political science who study Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The organization began in 1976 as the Wester ...

and the

American Historical Association The American Historical Association (AHA) is the oldest professional association of historians in the United States and the largest such organization in the world. Founded in 1884, the AHA works to protect academic freedom, develop professional s ...

Author

Sperber has written a number of books on the political, social and religious history of nineteenth-century Europe. His 2013 book ''Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life'' was critically well-reviewed, which the

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

described as an "absorbing, meticulously researched biography" in its Editors Choice Book Review. The book was a 2014 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Biography. The book was also named one of the Best Books of the Year by Publishers Weekly and Book Riot.

Personal life

Sperber is married to Nancy Lynn Katzman with one son, Adam Philip.

Awards and Fellowships

* German Academic Exchange Service Fellowship, 1976-78, 1986, 1999 * Herbert Baxter Adams Prize, American Historical Association for the best first book in European history by an American author for ''Popular Catholicism in Nineteenth-Century Germany'', 1985 * Visiting Research Fellow, Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung at the University of Cologne, 1987-88 * John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, 1988-89 * German Studies Association Prize for the best book on German history or politics, for ''Rhineland Radicals,'' 1993 * American Philosophical Society Fellow, 1994 * Alan Sharlin Memorial Prize of the Social Science History Association awarded for the best book in social science history for ''The Kaiser's Voters'', 1998 * National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow for college and university teachers, 2001-02

Bibliography

* ''Popular Catholicism in Nineteenth-Century Germany'' (Princeton University Press, 1984, ) * ''Rhineland Radicals: The Democratic Movement and the Revolution of 1848-1849'' (Princeton University Press, 1992, ) * ''The Kaiser's Voters: Electors and Elections in Imperial Germany'' (Cambridge University Press, 1997, ) * ''Revolutionary Europe, 1780-1850'' (Routledge, 2000, ) * ''Europe in 1848: Revolution and Reform'' (Berghahn Books, 2001, ) * ''Germany, 1800-1870'' (Oxford University Press, 2004, ) * ''Property and Civil Society in South-Western Germany 1820-1914'' (Oxford University Press, 2005, ) * ''The European Revolutions, 1848-1851 (New Approaches to European History)'' (Cambridge University Press, 2005, ) * ''Europe 1850-1914: Progress, Participation and Apprehension'' (Routledge, 2008, ) * ''Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life'' (Liveright, 2013, ) * ''Bourgeois Europe, 1850-1914'' 2nd Ed. (Routledge, 2022, ) * ''The Age of Interconnection: A Global History of the Second Half of the Twentieth Century'' (Oxford University Press, 2023, )

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sperber, Jonathan Living people University of Chicago alumni Cornell University alumni 1952 births University of Missouri faculty 20th-century American male writers