William Hitchcock
Guest Speaker
Professional Affiliation
Professor of History, University of Virginia
Expert Bio
Fields & Specialties
Modern Europe, War and Society, Cold War
Education
B.A. Kenyon College, 1986
Ph.D. Yale University, 1994
Publications
Books
The Human Rights Revolution: An International History, co-edited with Akira Iriye and Petra Goedde. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
The Bitter Road to Freedom: A New History of the Liberation of Europe. (New York: The Free Press/Simon and Schuster, 2008). Published simultaneously in Britain by Faber and Co., London.
Winner, 2009 George Louis Beer Prize, American Historical Association.
Finalist for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction.
Finalist for the 2009 Mark Lynton History Prize.
Named to “Ten Best Books†List for 2008, Independent (UK)
Bestseller List, Financial Times (UK).
Translation: Dutch, Swedish, Italian, Polish.
The Struggle for Europe: The Turbulent History of a Divided Continent, 1945-present (New York: Doubleday, 2003; London, Profile Books, 2003; Anchor Books paperback, 2004).
Hebrew translation: ha-Maavak `al Eropah : ha-historyah ha-so`eret shel yabeshet mehuleket, 1945 `ad yamenu (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2006).
Italian translation: Il continente diviso: Storia dell’Europa dal 1945 a oggi. (Rome: Carocci, 2005).
From War to Peace: Altered Strategic Landscapes in the Twentieth Century. Co-edited with Paul Kennedy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000).
France Restored: Cold War Diplomacy and the Quest for Stability in Europe, 1945-1954 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1998).
A Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 1999.
Books in Progress
The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s, to be published by The Free Press in 2013.
Refereed Articles
“Pierre Boisson, French West Africa, and the Postwar é±è³Ü°ù²¹³Ù¾±´Ç²Ô: A Case from the Aix Files.†French Historical Studies 24 (2: Spring 2001), 305-41.
“France, the Western Alliance, and the Origins of the Schuman Plan, 1948-1950.†Diplomatic History 21 (4: Fall 1997), 603-30.
Book Chapters
"Human Rights and the Laws of War: The Geneva Conventions of 1949." In Hitchcock, Iriye and Goedde, eds., The Human Rights Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).
“The Marshall Plan and the Creation of the West,†in Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad, eds., The Cambridge History of the Cold War (New York and London: Cambridge University Press, 2010).
“The Ghost of Crises Past: The Troubled Alliance in Historical Perspective.†In End of the West? Ed. G. John Ikenberry, Thomas Risse, and Jeff Anderson. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008).
“Crisis and Modernization in the Fourth Republic: From Suez to Rome.†In Crisis and Renewal in France, 1918-1962, edited by Martin Alexander and Kenneth Mouré (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2002), 221-241.
“Reversal of Fortune: France and Britain in the Postwar World, 1945-1956,†in Altered Strategic Landscapes in the Twentieth Century (New Haven: Yale Press, 2000).
“Prospects for Europe and the Atlantic Alliance at Century’s End.†In Future Challenges in European and American Security Policy, edited by Kurt R. Spillmann and Andreas Wegner (Bern: Peter Lang, 1999).
“France.†Encyclopedia of American Foreign Relations (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 162-178.
Essays, Short Pieces
“The Price of Liberation,†Quarterly Journal of Military History 21, 3 (Spring 2009), 20-29.
“Pierre Boisson,†in Dictionnaire Charles de Gaulle (Paris: Robert Laffont, 2006), in French.
“Charles de Gaulle†and “Fouchet Plan,†in The Encyclopedia of the Cold War (Routledge/MTM Publishing, forthcoming).
“The Greatest Myth,†Prospect Magazine, April 2003 (no. 85), 10-11.
“State of the Nations,†Reuters Magazine, March/April 2003 (no. 55), 30-33.
“Counterblast: Has postwar Europe been a good example to a troubled world?†BBC
History Magazine, March 2003 (4, no.3), 45.
Recent papers and public lectures
“Liberation: The Meaning of Freedom at the Close of World War II Europe – and Beyond.†Woodrow ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ School, Princeton University, November 12, 2009.
“Historians and the End of World War II in Europe,†Pritzker Military Library, Chicago, April 9, 2009.
“The Liberation of Europe,†Foreign Policy Research Institute, Philadelphia, October 30, 2008
“Race, Sex and Power on the Normandy Frontier.†Seventh European Social Science History Conference, Lisbon, Portugal, February 29, 2008.
“The Continuing Crisis: NATO in Historical Perspective,†paper delivered to NATO Defense College, Rome, Italy, October 11, 2006.
“The Marshall Plan and the Creation of the West,†Conference on the Cambridge History of the Cold War, March 30-April 2, 2006, Truman Presidential Library, Independence, MO.
“France’s German Dilemma from Schuman to de Gaulle: Une Certaine Idée de l’Allemagne,†at conference on “Western Integration, German Unification and the Cold War - The Adenauer Era in Perspective,†Georgetown University, BMW Center for German and European Studies, in cooperation with the German Historical Institute, March 24, 2006.
“The Ghost of Crises Past: The Paradoxical Strength of the Atlantic Alliance,†Georgetown University, June 25, 2004.
“The Atlantic Alliance after Iraq,†Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, February 28, 2004.
“Europe and America: The Shattered Alliance,†Edinburgh Book Festival, Scotland, August 9, 2003.
“Europe Lost the Iraq War,†International Festival of Arts and Ideas, New Haven, June 25, 2003.
“Varieties of Liberation: Europeans at the Close of World War II,†Wellesley College Summer Symposium on World War II, June 5, 2003.
“The Continuing Struggle for Europe,†Harvard Club of New York, February 25, 2003.
“The United States and Europe: Smooth Sailing or Storm Clouds Ahead?†Geneva Center for Security Policy, Geneva, Switzerland, August 2000.
“Pierre Boisson, French West Africa, and the Post-Vichy Purge Trials: A Case from the Aix Files,†International History Colloquium, Yale University, January 1999.
“Prospects for the Atlantic Alliance in the Twenty-first Century,†Geneva Center for Security Policy, Geneva, Switzerland, August 24, 1998.
“The Lessons of Suez: France, the United States, and the Origins of the Treaty of Rome,†Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, Washington, DC, June 1998.
“France and the European Defense Community Debate, 1950-1954,†Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, Boulder CO, June 23, 1996.
“Autonomy and Hegemony in the Western Alliance: France and the Politics of German Rearmament, 1950-1954,†Society for French Historical Studies, Boston, March 23, 1996.
Teaching Fields
The Cold War and After: World Politics since 1945
Europe since 1945
Twentieth Century Europe
Occupied Europe, 1939-1945: Genocide, Resistance, Collaboration
The Global Crisis: World Politics in the 20th Century
Strategy and Diplomacy of the Great Powers, 1750 to the Present
The American Century: 20th Century U.S. Foreign Relations
Historical Origins of Contemporary Conflict: War in Today’s World
Europe Overseas: Imperialism and Decolonization, 1880-1960
The First World War
The Second World War: War and Society (graduate seminar)
Teaching Awards
Yale University: 1999 Sarai Ribicoff Award (teaching award for faculty in the humanities)
Insight & Analysis by William Hitchcock
- Past event
- History
The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s
- Past event
- Cold War
Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam
