Department of History

Herman Lebovics

SUNY Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor

Research Interests

I continue to be interested in 20th century cultural history and theory. My work has focused on issues of culture and the state, and in particular, on the influence of the colonies and overseas dependencies on metropolitan France.

My 2004 book, Bringing the Empire Back Home: France in the Age of Globalism, is on the politics of the heritage in France from 1968 to the end of the century.

To locate that cultural heritage it triangulates Paris, the provinces, and the former colonial empire. Currently, I am working on the new museums of France, in particular the Musee du Quai Branly and the immigration museum, both in Paris. I believe these, as well as others being created, together represent a major shift in the state's expression of the French national identity.

Publications

Imperialism and the Corruption of Democracies (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006)

Bringing the Empire Back Home: France in the Global Age (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004).

Mona Lisa’s Escort: André Malraux and the Reinvention of French Culture (Cornell University Press,1999).
----translation La Misión de Malraux (Buenos Aires: EditorialUniversitaria de Buenos Aires, 2001).

True France: The Wars over Cultural Identity, 1900-1945 (Cornell University Press, 1992).
----paperbound, Cornell, June 1994.
----trans. La Vraie France (Paris: Editions Belin, 1995).

The Alliance of Iron and Wheat: Origins of the New Conservatism of the Third Republic, 1860 1914 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988).

Social Conservatism and the Middle Classes in Germany,1914- 1933 (Princeton : Princeton University Press, 1969).

E-Mail

herman.lebovics@stonybrook.edu

Office

SBS S-323

Phone

631-632-7486

Fax

631-632-7367