Andrew Donson

Professor

Faculty
portrait of Andrew Donson
Contact
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Location
Herter Hall 637

Andrew Donson is a historian of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe, with a specialty on Germany in the era of the First World War.  He also has expertise in nineteenth-century German philosophy and social theory.  He holds a dual appointment in the History Department and the Program in German and Scandinavian Studies.  He completed a PhD in history at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor and B.A. in philosophy from Cornell University.  Since fall 2018, he has been book review editor of First World War Studies. For more, see his personal website

Education

  • PhD 2000, History, University of Michigan Ann Arbor
  • MA 1995, History, University of Michigan Ann Arbor
  • BA 1991, College Scholar in Philosophy, Cornell University

Research Areas

  • Nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe
  • German social, cultural, and political history
  • History of youth
  • The First World War
  • The 1918 Revolution
  • Social democracy
  • Nineteenth-century German thought (Kant, Hegel, Marx, Weber, Nietzsche, Freud)

Publications

Books

  • Youth in the Fatherless Land: War Pedagogy, Nationalism, and Authority in Germany, 1914-1918 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010).
  • “The Freedoms of the November Revolution: German Society at the Birth of Democracy, 1918-1919,” book manuscript, 100,000-words, currently under review.

Selected Articles:

  • “‘No Desire to Work’ in the November Revolution: A Social and Economic Analysis,”
  • Living the German Revolution, ed. Christopher Dillon, Steven Schouten, and
  • Kim Wünschmann (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2022).
  • “Gewerkschaften gegen Arbeitsunlust in der Novemberrevolution,” in
  • Gewerkschaften im revolutionären Europa, 1917-1923, ed. Stefan Berger,
  • Anja Kruke, and Wolfgang Jaeger (Bonn: J.H.W. Dietz, 2020)
  • “Growing Up in War: Youth and Childhood, 1914-1918,” 1914-1918 online (2014).
  • “Mobilizing Education for War: Schools and Universities, 1914-1918,” 1914-1918 online (2014).
  • “The Teenager’s Revolution: Schülerräte in the Democratization and Right-Wing Radicalization of Germany, 1918-1923,” Central European History 44 (2011): 1-27.
  • “Why Did German Youth Become Fascists? Nationalist Males Born 1900 to 1908 in War and Revolution,” Social History 31 (2006): 337-58.
  • “Models for Young Nationalists and Militarists: Youth Literature in the First World War,” German Studies Review 27 (2004): 575-94.

Awards and Accolades

Courses Recently Taught

  • History 100: Western Civilization to 1600
  • History 101: Western Civilization from 1600
  • German 325 / History 325: The First World War
  • German 376 / History 387: The Holocaust
  • German 323 / History 323: Modern German History
  • German 370: Nineteenth-Century German Thought
  • German 697K:  Debates and Issues in Modern German History
  • German 697X: Nineteenth-Century German Thought