Ronald Smelser

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Together with fellow historian Edward J. Davies of the University of Utah, Smelser is the author of the 2008 book The Myth of the Eastern Front: The Nazi-Soviet War in American Popular Culture. It discusses perceptions of the Eastern Front of World War II in the United States in the context of historical revisionism. The book traces the foundation of the post-war myth of the "clean Wehrmacht", its support by U.S. military officials, and the impact of Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS mythology on American popular culture, including in the present time. The book garnered largely positive reviews for its thorough analysis of the myth's creation by German ex-participants and its entry into American culture. Several reviews noted some limitations of the book: in its discussion of the myth's role in contemporary culture and the extent of its impact on widely held popular perceptions of the Eastern Front, outside of a few select groups. [10] [11]

Foreign Affairs magazine called the book a "fascinating exercise in historiography", highlighting the authors' analysis of how a "number of Hitler's leading generals were given an opportunity to write the history of the Eastern Front (...) provid[ing] a sanitized version of events". [12] Military historian Jonathan House reviewed the book for The Journal of Military History , describing it as a "tour de force of cultural historiography" and commending the authors for "hav[ing] performed a signal service by tracing the origin and spread of this mythology". House recommends that military historians not only study the book, but "use it to teach students the dangers of bias and propaganda in history". [13]

A review published in the journal History provided a critical assessment of the book. While it praises Smelser and Davies for setting out the main myths concerning the Eastern Front, the review argues that they did not provide convincing evidence to support their argument that most Americans accept such an account. It concludes that "the book therefore delivers a rather weak conclusion, which dilutes the impact of the useful analysis earlier in the book..." [14] Likewise, American historian Dennis Showalter acknowledges that the romanticised views described in the book exist, but argues that they remain limited in their impact on the wider popular culture: "Eastern Front enthusiasts—who buy a disproportionate number of the books romanticizing the Eastern Front—are a minority within a minority, and, as a rule, are at some pains to deny sympathy with the Third Reich". The reviewer concludes that the opening of the Russian archives since the fall of the Soviet Union has enabled "balanced analysis at academic levels", leading to a new interest in the Red Army operations from popular history writers and World War II enthusiasts. [11]

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Notes

  1. Prosopography is an investigation of the common characteristics of a historical group, whose individual biographies may be largely untraceable, by means of a collective study of their lives, in multiple career-line analysis. Prosopographical research has the goal of learning about patterns of relationships and activities through the study of collective biography; it collects and analyses statistically relevant quantities of biographical data about a well-defined group of individuals.

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References

Citations

  1. Archives West – Ronald M. Smelser papers, 1919–2008, archived from the original 5 December 2015
  2. Professors Emeritus, The University of Utah
  3. Ronald M. Smelser & Edward J. Davis II (2008), The Myth of the Eastern Front: the Nazi-Soviet war in American popular culture, New York, Cambridge University Press, ISBN   978-0-521-83365-3  author notes from inside flap
  4. Archives West – Ronald M. Smelser papers, 1919–2008, archived from the original 5 December 2015
  5. Bucholz, Arden (1994). "The Nazi Elite". History: Reviews of New Books. 22 (3): 126. doi:10.1080/03612759.1994.9948995.
  6. "Smelser, Ronald". worldcat.org. Retrieved October 20, 2016.
  7. The University of Utah – Ron Smelser Holocaust Education Fund, archived from the original 5 December 2015
  8. Learning about the Holocaust: a student's guide / Ronald M. Smelser, editor in chief, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum web site
  9. Jonathan Petropoulos, John Roth (eds) (2005): Gray Zones: Ambiguity and Compromise in the Holocaust and its Aftermath
  10. Kelly 2010.
  11. 1 2 Showalter 2009.
  12. Freedman 2008.
  13. House 2008.
  14. Folly 2010.

Bibliography

Ronald Smelser
Born1942 (age 8182)
Pennsylvania, United States
Occupations
  • Professor of history
  • author
  • editor
Academic background
Alma mater University of Wisconsin