Lawrence Davidson is a retired professor of history from

West Chester University West Chester University (also known as West Chester, WCU, or WCUPA, and officially as West Chester University of Pennsylvania) is a public research university in and around West Chester, Pennsylvania. The university is accredited by the Middle ...

West Chester, Pennsylvania West Chester is a borough and the county seat of Chester County, Pennsylvania. Located within the Philadelphia metropolitan area, the borough had a population of 18,461 at the 2010 census. West Chester is the mailing address for most of its neighb ...

. He is the author of ''Islamic Fundamentalism'', ''Cultural Genocide'' and has focused his academic research on American foreign relations with the Middle East.

Early life and education

Davidson was born to a secular Jewish household in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

, Pennsylvania in 1945. He attended

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...

from 1963 to 1967, where he earned a bachelor's degree in history. While attending Rutgers, Davidson developed a leftist perspective regarding the problems facing the US in the 1960s. In 1967, Davidson was accepted into

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...

Master's program where he studied modern European intellectual history under Palestinian expatriate professor

Hisham Sharabi Hisham Sharabi ( ar, هشام الشرابي) (1927 Jaffa, Mandatory Palestine – 2005 Beirut, Lebanon) was Professor Emeritus of History and Umar al-Mukhtar Chair of Arab Culture at Georgetown University, where he was a specialist in European int ...

. During his time at Georgetown (1969–1970), Davidson became one of the founding members of the

Students for a Democratic Society Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a national student activist organization in the United States during the 1960s, and was one of the principal representations of the New Left. Disdaining permanent leaders, hierarchical relationships ...

(SDS) at Georgetown at the height of the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

. In 1970, with the breakup of the SDS, Davidson left the United States for Canada. He spent the next six years at the

University of Alberta The University of Alberta, also known as U of A or UAlberta, is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford,"A Gentleman of Strathcona – Alexander Cameron Rutherfor ...

in Edmonton where he earned a PhD (1976) in modern European Intellectual history. After returning to the United States in the mid-1970s, Davidson spent several years as an adjunct instructor at various colleges and universities, as well as working for a time as a middle manager at

Alexian Brothers The Alexians officially named as the Congregation of Alexian Brothers ( la, Congregatio Fratrum Cellitarum seu Alexianorum) abbreviated C.F.A., is a Catholic lay religious congregation of Pontifical Right for men specifically devoted to caring ...

Health Systems Catholic hospital in St. Louis. Subsequently, he was contracted to write the history of Alexian Brothers’ oldest hospital. This led to his first book, ''The Alexian Brothers of Chicago'' (1990). In 1989, Davidson joined the faculty of history at

as a tenure track professor where he taught Middle East history, the history of science, and modern European intellectual history. He retired from WCU in May 2013. Currently, Davidson writes for his Blog ''To The Point Analyses'' and is a contributing editor for '' Logos: A Journal of Modern Society and Culture''. Davidson is a board member of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.

''Cultural Genocide'' (2012)

In 2012, Rutgers University Press published Davidson's book ''Cultural Genocide''. Davidson defines cultural genocide as the "purposeful destructive targeting of out-group cultures so as to destroy or weaken them in the process of conquest or domination".

Books

* Davidson, Lawrence. ''The Alexian Brothers of Chicago: An Evolutionary Look at the Monastery and Modern Health Care.'' New York: Vantage Press, 1990. * Davidson, Lawrence. ''Islamic Fundamentalism.'' Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1998. * Davidson, Lawrence. ''America's Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood.'' Gainesville, FL: U of Florida, 2001. * Davidson, Lawrence. ''Foreign Policy, Inc.: Privatizing America's National Interest.'' Lexington: U of Kentucky, 2009. * Goldschmidt, Arthur, Lawrence Davidson, and Tom Weiner.'' A Concise History of the Middle East.'' Boulder, CO. : Westview Press, 2002. * Davidson, Lawrence.'' Cultural Genocide.'' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 2012.

References

External links

To The Point Analyses

Consortium News

Logos Journalwith Larry Davidson
�by Stephen McKiernan, Binghamton University Libraries Center for the Study of the 1960s {{DEFAULTSORT:Davidson, Lawrence 1945 births Living people American male non-fiction writers American political writers Genocide Georgetown University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Historians of the Middle East Islam and politics Middle Eastern studies in the United States Rutgers University alumni University of Alberta alumni West Chester University faculty