Walter Laqueur
Encyclopedia
Walter Zeev Laqueur is an American historian and political commentator. He was born in Breslau, Germany
(modern Wrocław, Poland
), to a Jewish family. In 1938, Laqueur left Germany for the British Mandate of Palestine. His parents, who were unable to leave, became victims of the Holocaust. He lived in Israel
1938-53 and since then in the UK and US.
He was Director of the Institute of Contemporary History
and the Wiener Library
in London
in 1965-1994. He was founder and editor, with George Mosse
, of the Journal of Contemporary History
and of Survey 1956-1964. He was founding editor of the The Washington Papers. From 1969 he was member, later Chairman (until 2000) International Research Council of the Center for Strategic and International Studies
, Washington. He was Professor of History of Ideas at Brandeis University
1968-1972, University Professor at Georgetown University
1976-1988. He has been visiting professor of history and government at Harvard, University of Chicago
, Tel Aviv
and Johns Hopkins University
.
His main works deal with European history
in the 19th and 20th century, especially Russian history
, German history
and Middle East
history. He has written on many topics from the German Youth Movement
, Zionism
, Israeli history
, the cultural history
of the Weimar Republic
and Russia
, Communism
, the Holocaust
, fascism
and diplomatic history
of the Cold War
. His books have been translated into many languages and he was one of the founders of the study of political violence
, guerrilla warfare
and terrorism
. His comments on international affairs have appeared in many American and European newspapers and periodicals.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
(modern Wrocław, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
), to a Jewish family. In 1938, Laqueur left Germany for the British Mandate of Palestine. His parents, who were unable to leave, became victims of the Holocaust. He lived in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
1938-53 and since then in the UK and US.
He was Director of the Institute of Contemporary History
Institute of Contemporary History
The name "Institute of Contemporary History" is used by the following institutions:* The Wiener Library and Institute of Contemporary History, London, England* Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich, Germany* Inštitut za novejšo zgodovino, Ljubljana, Slovenia...
and the Wiener Library
Wiener Library
The Wiener Library is the world's oldest institution devoted to the study of the Holocaust, its causes and legacies. Founded in 1933 as an information bureau that informed Jewish communities and governments worldwide about the persecution of the Jews under the Nazis, it was transformed into a...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in 1965-1994. He was founder and editor, with George Mosse
George Mosse
George Lachmann Mosse was a German-born American social and cultural historian. Mosse authored 25 books on a variety of fields, from English constitutional law, Lutheran theology, to the history of fascism, Jewish history, and the history of masculinity...
, of the Journal of Contemporary History
Journal of Contemporary History
The Journal of Contemporary History is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering the study of twentieth-century history. It was established in 1966 by Walter Laqueur and George L. Mosse and is now published quarterly by Sage Publications and edited by Richard J...
and of Survey 1956-1964. He was founding editor of the The Washington Papers. From 1969 he was member, later Chairman (until 2000) International Research Council of the Center for Strategic and International Studies
Center for Strategic and International Studies
The Center for Strategic and International Studies is a bipartisan Washington, D.C., foreign policy think tank. The center was founded in 1962 by Admiral Arleigh Burke and Ambassador David Manker Abshire, originally as part of Georgetown University...
, Washington. He was Professor of History of Ideas at Brandeis University
Brandeis University
Brandeis University is an American private research university with a liberal arts focus. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, Massachusetts, nine miles west of Boston. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate students. In 2011, it...
1968-1972, University Professor at Georgetown University
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...
1976-1988. He has been visiting professor of history and government at Harvard, University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
, Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
and Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
.
His main works deal with European history
History of Europe
History of Europe describes the history of humans inhabiting the European continent since it was first populated in prehistoric times to present, with the first human settlement between 45,000 and 25,000 BC.-Overview:...
in the 19th and 20th century, especially Russian history
History of Russia
The history of Russia begins with that of the Eastern Slavs and the Finno-Ugric peoples. The state of Garðaríki , which was centered in Novgorod and included the entire areas inhabited by Ilmen Slavs, Veps and Votes, was established by the Varangian chieftain Rurik in 862...
, German history
History of Germany
The concept of Germany as a distinct region in central Europe can be traced to Roman commander Julius Caesar, who referred to the unconquered area east of the Rhine as Germania, thus distinguishing it from Gaul , which he had conquered. The victory of the Germanic tribes in the Battle of the...
and Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
history. He has written on many topics from the German Youth Movement
German Youth Movement
The German Youth Movement is a collective term for a cultural and educational movement that started in 1896. It consists of numerous associations of young people that focus on outdoor activities. The movement included German Scouting and the Wandervogel...
, Zionism
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
, Israeli history
History of Israel
The State of Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948 after almost two millennia of Jewish dispersal and persecution around the Mediterranean. From the late 19th century the Zionist movement worked towards the goal of recreating a homeland for the Jewish people...
, the cultural history
Cultural history
The term cultural history refers both to an academic discipline and to its subject matter.Cultural history, as a discipline, at least in its common definition since the 1970s, often combines the approaches of anthropology and history to look at popular cultural traditions and cultural...
of the Weimar Republic
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
and Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, Communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
, the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
, fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
and diplomatic history
Diplomatic history
Diplomatic history deals with the history of international relations between states. Diplomatic history can be different from international relations in that the former can concern itself with the foreign policy of one state while the latter deals with relations between two or more states...
of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
. His books have been translated into many languages and he was one of the founders of the study of political violence
Political violence
Political violence is a common means used by people and governments around the world to achieve political goals. Many groups and individuals believe that their political systems will never respond to their political demands. As a result they believe that violence is not only justified but also...
, guerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...
and terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
. His comments on international affairs have appeared in many American and European newspapers and periodicals.
Works
- Communism and Nationalism in the Middle East, London, Routledge & Paul 1956.
- Nasser's Egypt, London : Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1957.
- Co-edited with George Lichtheim The Soviet Cultural Scene, 1956-1957, New York : Praeger, 1958.
- The Middle East in Transition : Studies in Contemporary History, New York : Praeger, 1958.
- The Soviet Union and the Middle East, London, Routledge K. Paul 1959.
- Co-edited with Leopold LabedzLeopold LabedzLeopold Labedz was an anti-communist Anglo-Polish commentator on the Soviet Union.Labedz was born to a Polish Jewish doctor in Russia. The family soon returned to Warsaw and the young Labedz decided to follow his father into the medical profession. He studied medicine in Paris...
Polycentrism : the New Factor in International Communism, New York : Praeger, 1962. - Young Germany : a History of the German Youth Movement, New York : Basic Books, 1962.
- Neue Welle in der Sowjetunion : Beharrung und Fortschritt in Literatur und Kunst, Wien : Europa Verlag, 1964.
- Russia and Germany; A Century of Conflict, London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1965.
- Co-edited with George L. Mosse 1914: The Coming of the First World War, New York, Harper & Row 1966.
- Co-edited with George L. Mosse Education and Social Structure in the Twentieth Century, New York : Harper & Row, 1967.
- The Fate of the Revolution : Interpretations of Soviet History, London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1967.
- The Road to Jerusalem; The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1967, New York, Macmillan 1968.
- The Road to War, 1967 : the Origins of the Arab-Israel Conflict, London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969.
- Co-written with George Mosse Linksintellektuelle zwischen den beiden Weltkriegen, München : Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, 1969.
- The Struggle for the Middle East : the Soviet Union in the Mediterranean, 1958-1968, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969.
- Europe Since Hitler, London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1970.
- A Dictionary of Politics, London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1971 ISBN 0-297-00091-8.
- Out of the Ruins of Europe, New York : Library Press, 1971 ISBN 0-912050-01-2.
- Co-edited with Bernard Krikler A Readers Guide to Contemporary History, London : Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1972, ISBN 0-297-99465-4.
- A History of Zionism, London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1972. ISBN 0-03-091614-3
- Neo-Isolationism and the World of the Seventies, New York: Library Press, 1972 ISBN 0-912050-38-1.
- Confrontation : the Middle-East War and World Politics, London : Wildwood House, 1974 ISBN 0-7045-0096-5.
- Co-edited with George L. Mosse Historians in Politics, London : Sage Publications, 1974 ISBN 0-8039-9930-5.
- Weimar, a Cultural History, 1918-1933, London : Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1974 ISBN 0-297-76574-4.
- (Editor) Fascism : a Reader's Guide : Analyses, Interpretations, Bibliography, Berkeley : University of California Press, 1976 ISBN 0-520-03033-8.
- Terrorism, Boston : Little, Brown, 1977 ISBN 0-316-51470-5.
- Guerrilla : a Historical and Critical Study, London : Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1977 ISBN 0-297-77184-1.
- (Editor) The Guerrilla Reader : a Historical Anthology, Philadelphia : Temple University Press, 1977 ISBN 0-87722-095-6.
- (Editor) The Terrorism Reader : a Historical Anthology, Philadelphia : Temple University Press, 1978, ISBN 0-87722-119-7.
- Co-edited with Barry RubinBarry RubinBarry Rubin is an American-born Israeli expert in terrorism. He is a professor at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel and the director of the Global Research in International Affairs Center of the IDC, and a senior fellow at the Interdisciplinary Center's International Policy...
The Human Rights Reader, Philadelphia : Temple University Press, 1979 ISBN 0-87722-170-7. - A Continent Astray : Europe, 1970-1978, New York : Oxford University Press, 1979 ISBN 0-19-502510-5.
- The Missing Years : a Novel, Boston : Little, Brown, 1980 ISBN 0-316-51472-1.
- The Terrible Secret : Suppression of the Truth about Hitler's "Final Solution", Boston ; Toronto : Little, Brown, 1980 ISBN 0-316-51474-8.
- The Political Psychology of Appeasement : Finlandization and Other Unpopular Essays, New Brunswick, N.J. : Transaction Books, 1980 ISBN 0-87855-336-3.
- "HollanditisHollanditisHollanditis was a term coined in 1981 by the American historian Walter Laqueur. It was used to describe the wave of pacifist neutralism that swept through the Netherlands in the first half of the 1980s and which influenced similar grass roots movements in other European countries...
: A New Stage in European Neutralism" from Commentary, August 1981. - (Editor) The Second World War : Essays in Military and Political History, London : Sage Publications, 1982 ISBN 0-8039-9780-9.
- America, Europe, and the Soviet Union : Selected Essays, New Brunswick, N.J. : Transaction Books, 1983 ISBN 0-87855-362-2.
- (Editor) The Pattern of Soviet Conduct in the Third World, New York, N.Y. : Praeger, 1983 ISBN 0-03-063944-1.
- Looking Forward, Looking Back : a Decade of World Politics, New York : Praeger, 1983 ISBN 0-03-063422-9.
- Co-edited with Barry Rubin The Israel-Arab Reader : a Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict, New York, N.Y. : Penguin Books, 1984 ISBN 0-14-022588-9.
- Germany Today : A Personal Report, Boston : Little, Brown, 1985 ISBN 0-316-51453-5.
- A World of Secrets : the Uses and Limits of Intelligence, New York : Basic Books, 1985 ISBN 0-465-09237-3.
- Co-edited with Robert Hunter European Peace Movements and the Future of the Western Alliance, New Brunswick, US : Transaction Books, 1985 ISBN 0-88738-035-2
- Co-written with Richard Breitman Breaking The Silence, New York : Simon and Schuster, 1986 ISBN 0-671-54694-5.
- The Fate of the Revolution : Interpretations of Soviet History from 1917 to the Present, New York : Scribner's, 1987 ISBN 0-684-18903-8.
- Co-edited with Brad Roberts America in the World, 1962-1987 : a Strategic and Political Reader, New York : St. Martin's Press, 1987 ISBN 0-312-01318-3.
- The Age of Terrorism, Boston ; Toronto : Little, Brown, 1987 ISBN 0-316-51478-0.
- The Long Road to Freedom: Russia and Glasnost, Collier Books, 1989, ISBN 0-02-034090-7.
- Soviet Realities : Culture and Politics from Stalin to Gorbachev, New Brunswick, US : Transaction Publishers, 1990 ISBN 0-88738-302-5.
- Stalin : the Glasnost Revelations, New York : Scribner's, 1990 ISBN 0-684-19203-9.
- Co-written with John EricksonJohn Erickson (historian)John Erickson was a British historian who wrote extensively on the Second World War...
Soviet Union 2000 : Reform or Revolution?, New York : St. Martin's Press, 1990 ISBN 0-312-04425-9. - Thursday's Child Has Far to Go: A Memoir of the Journeying Years, Scribner, 1992 ISBN 0-684-19421-X.
- Europe In Our Time : A History, 1945-1992, New York : Viking, 1992 ISBN 0-670-83507-2.
- Black Hundreds : the Rise of the Extreme Right in Russia, New York : HarperCollins, 1993 ISBN 0-06-018336-5.
- The Dream That Failed : Reflections on the Soviet Union, New York : Oxford University Press, 1994 ISBN 0-19-508978-2.
- Fascism : Past, Present, Future, New York : Oxford University Press, 1996 ISBN 0-19-509245-7.
- Fin de Siècle and Other Essays on America & Europe, New Brunswick, N.J. ; London, UK : Transaction Publishers, 1997 ISBN 1-56000-261-1.
- Guerrilla Warfare: A Historical and Critical Study, Transaction Publishers, 1997 ISBN 0-7658-0406-9.
- Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind, Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1998 ISBN 0-943875-89-7.
- The New Terrorism : Fanaticism and the Arms of Mass Destruction, New York : Oxford University Press, 1999 ISBN 0-19-511816-2.
- Generation Exodus : the Fate of Young Jewish Refugees From Nazi Germany, Hanover, NH ; London : University Press of New England [for] Brandeis University Press, 2001 ISBN 1-58465-106-7
- Co-edited with Judith Tydor Baumel The Holocaust Encyclopedia, Yale University Press, 2001 ISBN 0-300-08432-3.
- A History of Terrorism, New Jersey : Transaction Publishers, 2001 ISBN 0-765-80799-8.
- No End to War : Terrorism in the Twenty-first Century, New York : Continuum, 2003 ISBN 0-8264-1435-4.
- Voices of Terror: Manifestos, Writings and Manuals of Al Qaeda, Hamas, and Other Terrorists from Around the World and Throughout the AgesVoices of TerrorVoices of Terror: Manifestos, Writings and Manuals of Al Qaeda, Hamas, and Other Terrorists from Around the World and Throughout the Ages is a book edited byscholar and historian Walter Laqueur ....
, Sourcebooks, Inc, 2004 ISBN 1-59429-035-0. - "Dying for Jerusalem": The Past, Present and Future of the Holiest City, Sourcebooks, Inc, 2006 ISBN 1-4022-0632-1.
- The Changing Face of Antisemitism: From Ancient Times to the Present Day, Oxford University Press, 2006 ISBN 0-19-530429-2.
- The Last Days of Europe: Epitaph for an Old Continent, Thomas Dunne Books, 2007 ISBN 0-31-236870-4.
- (2004) No End to War: Terrorism in the Twenty-first Century, Continuum International Publishing Group