Eugen Joseph Weber was a Romanian-born American historian with a special focus on Western civilization.
12 Facts About Eugen Weber
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Eugen Weber described his political awakening as a realization of social injustices: "It was my vague dissatisfaction with social hierarchy, the subjection of servants and peasants, the diffuse violence of everyday life in relatively peaceful country amongst apparently gentle folk".
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Eugen Weber earned many accolades for his scholarship, including membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, membership to the American Philosophical Society, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies and the Fulbright Program.
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When Eugen Weber was ten, his parents hired a private tutor, but the tutor did not stay long.
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Eugen Weber was reading George Sand, Jules Verne and "every cheap paperback I could afford".
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Eugen Weber remained at Cambridge to study for a PhD, but his dissertation thesis was rejected after the external examiner, Alfred Cobban of the University of London, gave a negative review, saying it lacked sufficient archival sources.
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Eugen Weber briefly taught at Emmanuel College and the University of Alberta before settling in the United States, where he taught first at the University of Iowa and then, until 1993 on his retirement, at the University of California, Los Angeles.
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Eugen Weber wrote a column titled "LA Confidential" for the Los Angeles Times.
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Eugen Weber wrote for several French popular newspapers and, in 1989, presented an American public television series, The Western Tradition, which consisted of fifty-two lectures of 30 minutes each.
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Eugen Weber died in Brentwood, Los Angeles, California, aged 82.
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Eugen Weber emphasizes that well into the 19th century few French citizens regularly spoke French, but rather regional languages or dialects such as Breton, Gascon, Basque, Catalan, Flemish, Alsatian, and Corsican.
12.
Between 1870 and 1914, Eugen Weber argued, a number of new forces penetrated the previously isolated countryside.