John Lukacs (born 31 January 1924 in Budapest his name spelled Lukács) is a Hungarian-born historian who has written more than twenty-five books, including Five Days in London, May 1940 and The New Republic. He was a professor of history at Chestnut Hill College from 1947 to 1994, and the chair of that history department from 1947 to 1974. He has served as a visiting professor at Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University, Princeton University, and at the University of Budapest. January 31 is the 31st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1924 (MCMXXIV) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar). ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... An historian is someone who writes history, a written accounting of the past. ... Chestnut Hill College is a four-year liberal arts college in Philadelphia. ... Year 1947 (MCMXLVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1947 calendar). ... 1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated as the International Year of the Family and the International Year of the Sport and the Olympic Ideal by United Nations. ... 1974 (MCMLXXIV) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ... The Johns Hopkins University, founded in 1876, is a private institution of higher learning located in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. ... Columbia University is a private research university whose main campus lies in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of the Borough of Manhattan in New York City. ... Princeton University is a coeducational private university located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States of America. ... This article is about Eötvös Loránd University, which is often referred to as University of Budapest. ...

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Lukacs was born to a Catholic father and Jewish mother. His parents divorced before World War II. Although Lukacs was raised Catholic, he served in a Hungarian labor battalion for converted Jews during that war. He evaded deportation to the death camps and survived the Siege of Budapest. In 1946, he fled Hungary for the United States to escape increasing Communist influence in the Hungarian government. In the early 1950s, Lukacs wrote several articles in the Commonweal criticizing Senator Joseph McCarthy, whom he described as a vulgar demagogue. The word Jew ( Hebrew: יהודי) is used in a wide number of ways, but generally refers to a follower of the Jewish faith, a child of a Jewish mother, or someone of Jewish descent with a connection to Jewish culture or ethnicity and often a combination... Combatants Allied Powers Axis Powers Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000,000 Total dead: 50,000,000 Military dead: 8,000,000 Civilian dead: 4,000,000 Total dead 12,000,000 World War II (abbreviated WWII), or the Second World War, was a worldwide conflict... Labour service (Hungarian: munkaszolgálat) were a form of Hungarian forced labor, labor battalions conscripted by the German-allied regime primarily from young Hungarian Jewish men at the onset of and during World War II. Initially this badly fed and poorly clothed unit was assigned to perform heavy construction work... Combatants Germany, Hungary Soviet Union, Romania Commanders Karl Pfeffer-Wildenbruch Rodion Malinovsky, Fyodor Tolbukhin Strength 180,000 (90,000 for city defense) 500,000+ (170,000 for city assault) Casualties Low estimate: ~ 48,000 killed, ~ 51,000 captured, High estimate: ~ 150,000 killed or captured, Est. ... Communism is an ideology that seeks to establish a classless, stateless social organization, based upon common ownershipmovement]]. Early forms of human social organization have been described as primitive communism by Marxists. ... Commonweal is a New York based American journal of opinion edited and managed by lay Catholics. ... Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin between 1947 and 1957. ...

Lukacs sees populism as the greatest threat to civilisation. By his own description, Lukacs considers himself to be a reactionary. In Lukacs's view, the essence of both National Socialism and Communism was populism. Lukacs does not believe in generic fascism, in his opinion the differences between Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy were far greater then the similarities. Lukacs sees himself as the defender of the traditional values of Western civilization against what he regards as the debasing leveling effects of modern mass civilization, and above the institution that Lukacs sees as the supreme guardian of Western values, namely the Roman Catholic Church. Reactionary (or reactionist) is a political epithet, generally used as a pejorative, originally applied in the context of the French Revolution to counter-revolutionaries who wished to restore the real or imagined conditions of the monarchical Ancien Régime. ... The term National socialism has been used in self-description by a number of unrelated political movements. ... Communism is an ideology that seeks to establish a classless, stateless social organization, based upon common ownershipmovement]]. Early forms of human social organization have been described as primitive communism by Marxists. ... Fascism is a political ideology and mass movement that seeks to place the nation, defined in exclusive biological, cultural, and/or historical terms, above all other sources of loyalty, and to create a mobilized national community. ... Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, commonly refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the firm control of the totalitarian and fascist ideology of the Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as dictator. ... Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler Fascism (in Italian, fascismo), capitalized, refers to the right-wing authoritarian political movement which ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943 under the leadership of Benito Mussolini. ... The Roman Catholic Church or Catholic Church (see terminology below) is the Christian Church in full communion with the Bishop of Rome, currently Pope Benedict XVI. It traces its origins to the original Christian community founded by Jesus Christ and led by the Twelve Apostles, in particular Saint Peter. ...

Lukacs has argued that the best form of government is that of an enlightened elite, preferably a Catholic elite. A major theme of Lukacs's writing has concerned an assertion by the French historian Alexis de Tocqueville in the 19th century that all states, whether monarchies or republics, had been dominated by aristocratic elites, and the age of aristocratic elites was drawing to a close and the age of democratic elites reflecting the interests and concerns of the masses was dawning. Much of Lukacs's writings are concerned with what he regards as this transition from aristocratic to democratic elites and its consequences. For other uses, see Tocqueville (disambiguation) Alexis de Tocqueville Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville (Verneuil-sur-Seine, ÃŽle-de-France, July 29, 1805– Cannes, April 16, 1859) was a French political thinker and historian. ... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ...

By his own admission an intense Anglophile, Lukacs’s favorite historical figure is Winston Churchill, whom Lukacs considers the greatest statesman of the 20th century and the savior of not only Great Britain, but also of Western civilization. Lukacs holds strong neo-isolationist beliefs, and perhaps unusually for an anti-Communist Hungarian émigré, was strongly opposed to the Cold War. Lukacs often argued his belief that the Soviet Union was a feeble power on the verge of collapse, and contended that the Cold War was an unnecessary waste of American treasure and life. Likewise, Lukacs is strongly critical of the administration of George W. Bush and has condemned the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Many have seen Lukacs as a leading spokesmen for Paleoconservatism in the United States. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC (Can) (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was an English statesman, soldier, and author, best known as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999... For alternative meanings for The West in the United States, see the U.S. West and American West. ... Isolationism is a foreign policy which combines a non-interventionist military and a political policy of economic nationalism (protectionism). ... This does not cite its references or sources. ... For other uses, see Cold War (disambiguation). ... George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is the 43rd and current President of the United States, inaugurated on January 20, 2001. ... Combatants Coalition Forces: United States United Kingdom South Korea Australia Poland Romania others. ... Paleoconservatism (sometimes shortened to paleo or paleocon when the context is clear) is an anti-communist, anti-authoritarian[1] right wing movement based primarily in the United States that stresses tradition, civil society and classical federalism, along with familial, religious, regional, national and Western identity. ...

In his 1997 book, George F. Kennan and the Origins of Containment, 1944-1946, an collection of letters between Lukacs and his close friend George F. Kennan, both Lukacs and Kennan criticized the New Left interpretation of the Cold War being caused by the United States. Instead, Lukacs argued that through Joseph Stalin was largely responsible for the beginning of the Cold War, it was the administration of Dwight Eisenhower, which missed the chance for ending the Cold War in 1953, and thus unnecessarily allowed the Cold War to go on for decades more. George Frost Kennan (February 16, 1904 – March 17, 2005) was an American advisor, diplomat, political scientist, and historian, best known as the father of containment and as a key figure in the emergence of the Cold War. ... The New Left is a term used to refer to radical left-wing movements from the 1960s onwards. ... The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ... Dwight David Ike Eisenhower (October 14, 1890–March 28, 1969), American soldier and politician, was the 34th President of the United States (1953–1961) and supreme commander of the Allied forces in Europe during World War II, with the rank of General of the Army. ...

The Hitler of History

From about 1977 on, Lukacs has been one of the leading critics of the British historian David Irving, whom Lukacs has often accused of engaging in unscholarly practices and of having neo-Nazi sympathies. In part, Lukacs’s 1997 book, The Hitler of History, a Prosopography of the historians who have written biographies of Adolf Hitler contains a substantial critique of Irving’s work. Irving in his turn has engaged in what many consider to be vitriolic and anti-Semitic attacks against Lukacs (Lukacs is quite proud of his Roman Catholicism, but because of Jewish descent on his mother's side, Irving has always disparagingly referred to Lukacs as a Jewish historian). Irving has often threatened Lukacs with a libel lawsuit, but never followed through on these threats. For the album by Ash, see 1977 (album). ... David Irving, 2003 David John Cawdell Irving (born March 24, 1938) is a British writer specializing in the military history of World War II. He is the author of 25 books, including The Destruction of Dresden (1963), Hitlers War (1977), Churchills War (1987), and Goebbels — Mastermind of the... The terms Neo-Nazism and Neo-Fascism refer to any social or political movement to revive Nazism or Fascism, respectively, and postdates the Second World War. ... 1997 (MCMXCVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Prosopography is an important methodological tool within historical research, its goal being the collection of all known information about individuals within a given period, often in the form of a register or database (frequently also known as a Prosopography, e. ... This is an article on biographies. ... Hitler redirects here. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... The Roman Catholic Church, most often spoken of simply as the Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with over one billion members. ... In English and American law, and systems based on them, libel and slander are two forms of defamation (or defamation of character), which is the tort or delict of making a false statement of fact that injures someones reputation. ...

In The Hitler of History, Lukacs examines the state of Hitler scholarship inspired by the example of Pieter Geyl's book, Napoleon For and Against, while at the same time offering his own observations about Hitler. In addition, The Hitler of History was intended to serve as the beginning of the "historicization" of Hitler as called for by Martin Broszat in an 1986 essay. Pieter Carharinus Arie Geyl (1887-1966) was a Dutch historian well known for his studies in early modern Dutch history and in historiography. ... Martin Broszat (August 14, 1926 – October 14, 1989) was a left-wing West German historian. ...

In Lukacs’s view, Hitler was a racist, nationalist, revolutionary, populist who draw his strongest support from the middle classes and above the working class. Lukacs has often criticized those left-wing historians who claimed that the majority of the German working class were strongly anti-Nazi; in Lukacs’s view, the exact opposite was the case. Each chapter of The Hitler of History is devoted to a particular topic such was Hitler a reactionary or revolutionary; a nationalist or a racist; and the roots of Hitler’s ideology. Lukacs has concluded that Hitler’s claim in Mein Kampf that he developed his anti-Semitic ideology in pre-World War I Vienna is false; instead, Lukacs has dated Hitler’s turn to anti-Semitism to 1919 Munich, in particular the events surrounding the Bavarian Soviet Republic and its crushing. Much influenced by Rainer Zitelmann's work, Lukacs has described Hitler as self-conscious modernizing revolutionary. The term working class is used to denote a social class. ... Cover of Mein Kampf Volume 1 (First Edition) Mein Kampf (English translation: My Struggle) is the signature work of Adolf Hitler, combining elements of autobiography with an exposition of Hitlers political ideology of Nazism. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Vienna (German: , see also other names) is the capital of Austria, and also one of the nine States of Austria. ... Coordinates: Time zone: CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2) Administration Country: Germany State: Bavaria Administrative region: Upper Bavaria District: Urban district City subdivisions: 25 borroughs Lord Mayor: Christian Ude (SPD) Governing parties: SPD / Greens / Rosa Liste Basic Statistics Area: 310. ... The Bavarian Soviet Republic (Bayrische Räterepublik) — also known as the Munich Soviet Republic (Münchner Räterepublik) — was a short-lived revolutionary government in the German state of Bavaria in 1919 that sought to replace the fledgling Weimar Republic in its early days. ... Rainer Zitelmann (born 1957 in Frankfurt) is a German historian, journalist and management consultant. ...

In Lukacs’s view, Operation Barbarossa was not inspired by anti-Communism or any long-term plans on the part of Hitler for the conquest of the Soviet Union, but was rather an ad hoc reaction forced on Hitler by Britain’s refusal to surrender. Lukacs has argued that the reasons that Hitler offered for the invasion; namely that Britain would not surrender because Churchill held out the hope that the Soviet Union might enter the war on the Allied state, thereby leaving Germany with no other choice other then to eliminate that hope, which many historians have argued was just an pretext, were indeed Hitler’s real reasons for Barbarossa. At the same time, Lukacs has been one of the leading critics of Viktor Suvorov, whose arguments about Barbarossa being an "preventive war" forced on Hitler Lukacs has often attacked. Combatants Germany Romania Finland Italy Hungary Slovakia Soviet Union Commanders Adolf Hitler General (later MareÅŸal) Ion Antonescu Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim Joseph Stalin Strength ~ 3. ... This does not cite its references or sources. ... Viktor Suvorov (; real name Vladimir Rezun : ) (born April 20, 1947) is a Russian writer and historian. ...

Later Work

In his 2005 book, Democracy and Populism: Fear and Hatred, Lukacs writes about the current state of American democracy. He warns that the populism he perceives as ascendant in the U.S. renders it vulnerable to demagoguery. He considers that this devolution from liberal democracy to populism is evident in such things as popular sentiment being the new substitute for what was once public opinion - and propaganda and infotainment over knowledge and history. 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Demagogy is generally a method of convincing a listener by appealing to the persons common sense and leaps of logic. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... Public Opinion is a book on media and democracy by Walter Lippmann. ... An Australian anti-conscription propaganda poster from World War One Propaganda is a type of message aimed at influencing the opinions or behavior of people. ... Infotainment refers to a general type of media broadcast program which provides a combination of current events news and feature news, or features stories. Infotainment also refers to the segments of programming in television news programs which overall consist of both hard news segments and interviews, along with celebrity interviews...

Works

• The Great Powers and Eastern Europe (New York : American Book Co., 1953).
• A History of the Cold War (Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, 1961).
• Decline and Rise of Europe: A Study in Recent History, With Particular Emphasis on the Development of a European Consciousness (Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1965).
• A New history of the Cold War (Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, 1966).
• Historical Consciousness; or, The Remembered Past (New York : Harper & Row, 1968).
• The Passing of the Modern Age (New York : Harper & Row, 1970).
• A Sketch of the History of Chestnut Hill College, 1924-1974 (Chestnut Hill, PA: Chestnut Hill College, 1975).
• The Last European War: September 1939-December 1941 (Garden City, N.Y. : Anchor Press, 1976).
• 1945: Year Zero (New York : Doubleday, 1978).
• Philadelphia: Patricians and Philistines, 1900-1950 (New York : Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1981).
• Outgrowing Democracy : A History of the United States in the Twentieth century (Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, 1984).
• Immigration and Migration: A Historical Perspective. AICF Monograph Series, paper no. 5 (Monterey, VA : American Immigration Control Foundation, 1986).
• Budapest 1900 : A Historical Portrait of a City and Its Culture (New York : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988).
• Confessions of an Original Sinner (New York : Ticknor and Fields, 1990).
• The Duel : 10 May-31 July 1940 : the Eighty-Day Struggle between Churchill and Hitler (New York : Ticknor & Fields, 1991).
• The End of the Twentieth Century and the End of the Modern Age (New York : Ticknor & Fields, 1993).
• Destinations Past : Traveling through History with John Lukacs (Columbia, MO : University of Missouri Press, 1994).
• The Hitler of History (New York : A. A. Knopf, 1997).
• George F. Kennan and the Origins of Containment, 1944-1946 : the Kennan-Lukacs Correspondence, Introduction by John Lukacs. (Columbia, Mo. : University of Missouri Press, 1997).
• A Thread of Years (New Haven [Conn.] : Yale University Press, 1998).
• Five Days in London, May 1940 (New Haven [Conn.] : Yale University Press, 1999).
• A Student's Guide to the Study of History (Wilmington, DE : ISI Books, Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2000).
• Churchill : Visionary, Statesman, Historian (New Haven [Conn.] : Yale University Press, 2002).
• At the End of an Age (New Haven [Conn.] : Yale University Press, 2002).
• A New Republic: A History Of The United States In The Twentieth Century(New Haven [Conn.] : Yale University Press, 2004).
• Democracy and Populism : Fear & Hatred (New Haven : Yale University Press, 2005).
• Remembered Past : John Lukacs On History, Historians & Historical Knowledge : A Reader (Wilmington, DE : ISI Books, Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2005).
• June 1941: Hitler and Stalin. New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2006 (ISBN 0-300-11437-0).

See also

• List of Adolf Hitler books

Adolf Hitlers Mein Kampf. ...

External links

• The People's Hitler Does Hitler's popularity discredit populism itself?: A Review of The Hitler of History by Adam Shatz
• Churchill: Visionary. Statesman. Historian, a review of Lukacs' book
• The Anti-Populist Traditionalist historian John Lukacs laments the direction of conservatism in America by Jeet Heer
• Review of THE HITLER OF HISTORY by John Lukacs & EXPLAINING HITLER: THE SEARCH FOR THE ORIGINS OF HIS EVIL by Ron Rosenbaum
• History in a Democratic Age: A Conversation with John Lukacs
• Towards the Fuhrer: Review of The Hitler Of History
• "A Student's Guide to the Study of History" by John Lukacs, from ISI's "Guides to the Major Disciplines
• Amazon.com: John Lukacs's list of the best historians
• The Universality of National Socialism (The Mistaken Category of `Fascism’) by John Lukacs

References

• Allitt, Patrick Catholic Intellectuals And Conservative Politics In America 1950-1985, Cornell University Press, 1993.
• Williamson, Chilton The Conservative Bookshelf: Essential Works That Impact Today's Conservative Thinkers, Citadel Press, 2004.