Geoffrey Roberts

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Geoffrey Roberts
Born1952 (age 71–72)
Deptford, London
Academic work
Main interests Cold War, history of the social sciences, international relations, Irish history (modern), philosophy of history, Russian history, Soviet history, World War II

Geoffrey Roberts (born 1952) is a British historian of World War II working at University College Cork. He specializes in Soviet diplomatic and military history of World War II. [1] He was professor of modern history at University College Cork (UCC) in Ireland and head of the School of History at UCC. [2]

Contents

Early life and career

Roberts was born in Deptford, South London, in 1952. As undergraduate, he studied international relations at North Staffordshire Polytechnic and was a postgraduate research student at the London School of Economics. [3] Roberts is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, [2] and taught history and international relations at University College Cork. [4]

A commentator on history and current affairs, Roberts has been a regular speaker in Britain, Ireland, Russia, and the United States and a contributor to the History News Service. [2] He has appeared on radio and television and has acted as an historical consultant for documentary series such as Simon Berthon's Warlords, which was broadcast in 2005 on Channel 4. [2] Academic awards won by Roberts include a Fulbright Scholarship to Harvard University and a Government of Ireland Senior Research Fellowship. [4]

In 2013, the Society for Military History awarded the Distinguished Book Award to his Stalin's General: The Life of Georgy Zhukov (2012), [4] a work which Jonathan Yardley for The Washington Post described as "what is likely to stand for some time as the most comprehensive biography of Zhukov." [5]

In 2015, Roberts' Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939–1953, [1] [nb 1] which was first published in 2006 by Yale University Press, was apparently banned from Sorbonne University because of alleged neutrality issue [nb 2] after an online petition [nb 3] asked the university to stock the French version of the work. Roberts was surprised by it, and commented, "It's never happened before. It's a work of scholarship. It has some very strong opinions, not everyone agrees with it, but to characterise it the way they've characterised it is completely wrong.... There can be no reason for an academic library to prohibit the purchase of Les Guerres de Staline, except political prejudice." [6]

Views

In an interview with George Mason University's History News Network following the publication of Stalin's General: The Life of Georgy Zhukov, Roberts said: "As I argued in Stalin's Wars and again in Stalin's General, it was (ironically) Stalin and the Soviets who helped saved [ sic ] liberal democracy, as well as the communist system, from the Nazis." [7]

About the Soviet Union, of which he was a critic in his youth, he commented "I retain the liberal and democratic ethos that informed my critique of Soviet authoritarianism." Roberts stated that it was "responsible for some of the most epic achievements and most gross misdeeds of our age" and said he had "no difficulty in joining the condemnation of the Soviet system's violence, terror and repression." [7]

Roberts said he was "a great admirer of much of [Timothy D.] Snyder's work" and commended Bloodlands for telling "an important part of the story, but I don't see it as the whole picture." [7] Expressing disagreement with Snyder's equating Nazi Germany with the Soviet Union, Roberts commented, "It's a pity Snyder's work has become associated with the recent revival of Cold War ideological polemics in which Hitler and Stalin and the Soviet and Nazi systems are depicted as being equivalent and as bad as each other." [7]

Reception

In a review for Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939–1953, the history professor Jonathan Haslam wrote that Cold War politics and historical revisionism "caused historians to emphasize Stalin's ruthlessness and paranoia while downplaying his contribution to the war effort." Roberts posited that "the contemporaneous view of Stalin as a great war leader was largely justified. Without minimizing Stalin's mistakes or his paranoia, the author maintains that the dictator was a key factor in the Soviet victory."

Roberts also wrote: "Without him the efforts of the [Communist] party, the people, the armed forces and their generals would have been considerably less effective." [8]

In a 1996 article for The Journal of Modern History , Haslam criticized Roberts for relying too heavily on edited Soviet archival documents and for going too far in his conclusions, positing that this made his accounts somewhat one sided and by no means telling a full story. [9]

In a review about the same work for The National Interest , the historian Andrew Bacevich described it as "a model of scholarship" but criticized the depiction of Stalin "as great statesman and man of peace" and posited that Roberts was being overly sympathetic towards Stalin, taking the word of the Soviet leadership uncritically in his writings, presenting a biased view, and significantly undermining the usefulness of his scholarship. Roberts described Stalin as "the dictator who defeated Hitler and helped save the world for democracy." [10]

Published works

Notes

  1. ↑ Roberts acknowledged the book as a "high partisan book" for positing that Joseph Stalin was "a very effective war leader who played a decisive role in the defeat of Hitler" and added, "It is also a work of scholarship that is based on all the available evidence and careful weighing of different arguments. It has been extensively reviewed but not even its worst critics have questioned its scholarly integrity." [6]
  2. ↑ The university responded to the request: "The proposed work, although it was written by a university professor, does not in principle seem to us to display the historical and scientific neutrality required for it to be included on our shelves. Nor do the other books published by the same publishing house." [6] The French translation of the book was published by Editions Delga, which describes itself as "a publishing house specialising in the humanities engaged in the defence of public cultural service, Marxist research and history of the international communist movement." [6]
  3. ↑ The online's petition, "submitted under the names of Godefroy Clair, Research Engineer at Université Paris 8, Annie Lacroix-Riz, Professor Emeritus of contemporary history at Université Paris 7 and Aymeric Monville, editor-in-chief, Editions Delga" according to the Irish Examiner , saw such refusal as part of a wider "McCarthyist censorship" in French universities. [6]

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References

  1. 1 2 Pechatnov, Vladimir (2008). "Review of Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939–1953". Journal of Cold War Studies. MIT Press. 10 (3): 179–181. doi:10.1162/jcws.2008.10.3.179. S2CID   153760325.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Geoffrey Roberts". Research Impact and Innovation at UCC. University College Cork. Retrieved 21 November 2021.
  3. ↑ "Geoffrey Roberts". European Institutes for Advanced Study. Retrieved 21 November 2021.
  4. 1 2 3 "Geoffrey Roberts". University College Cork. Retrieved 21 November 2021.
  5. ↑ Yardley, Jonathan (23 June 2012). "'Stalin's General: The Life of Georgy Zhukov' by Geoffrey Roberts". The Washington Post. ISSN   0190-8286 . Retrieved 21 November 2021.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 Leogue, Joe (20 February 2015). "UCC professor's book on Josef Stalin is 'banned' from Sorbonne". Irish Examiner. Retrieved 22 November 2021.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Leonard, Aaron (7 September 2012). "Russia's Architect of Victory: Interview with Geoffrey Roberts on Georgy Zhukov". History News Network. George Mason University. Retrieved 21 November 2021.
  8. ↑ Haslam, Jonathan (2008). "Review of Geoffrey Roberts, Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939–1953". The Journal of Modern History. University of Chicago Press. 80 (4): 968–970. doi:10.1086/596701 . Retrieved 21 November 2021– via H-Net.
  9. ↑ Haslam, Jonathan (December 1997). "Review: Soviet-German Relations and the Origins of the Second World War: The Jury Is Still Out". The Journal of Modern History. University of Chicago Press. 69 (4): 785–797. doi:10.1086/245594. JSTOR   10.1086/245594. S2CID   153559097.
  10. ↑ Bacevich, Andrew (29 August 2007). "Man of Steel, Re-forged". The Nati̟onal Interest. Archived from the original on 13 June 2010. Retrieved 21 November 2021.
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