Sir Christopher Clark | |
|---|---|
 Clark in 2013 | |
| Born | Christopher Munro Clark (1960-03-14)14 March 1960 (age 65) Sydney, Australia |
| Spouse | Nina Lübbren [de] |
| Children | Two sons |
| Awards | Wolfson History Prize |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | |
| Thesis | Jewish mission in the Christian state: Protestant missions to the Jews in 18th- and 19th-century Prussia[1] (1991) |
| Doctoral advisor | Jonathan Steinberg |
| Academic work | |
| Institutions | St Catharine's College, Cambridge |
| Website | Cambridge Faculty of History page |
Sir Christopher Munro ClarkFBA (born 14 March 1960) is an Australian historian living in the United Kingdom and Germany. He is the twenty-secondRegius Professor of History at theUniversity of Cambridge. In the2015 Birthday Honours, he wasknighted for his services toAnglo-German relations.[2]
Clark was educated atSydney Grammar School from 1972 to 1978, theUniversity of Sydney (where he studied history) and theFreie Universität Berlin from 1985 to 1987.[3]
Clark received his PhD at theUniversity of Cambridge, having been a member ofPembroke College from 1987 to 1991. He is Professor in ModernEuropean History at the University of Cambridge and, since 1991, has been a fellow ofSt Catharine's College,[4] where he is currently Director of Studies in History.
In 2003, Clark was appointed lecturer in Modern European History and, in 2006,reader in Modern European History. His Cambridge University professorship in history followed in 2008.[5]
In September 2014 he succeededRichard J. Evans asRegius Professor of History at Cambridge. In the birthday honours of June 2015, Clark was knighted on the recommendation of the foreign secretary for his services to Anglo-German relations.[2]
As Clark acknowledges in the foreword toIron Kingdom,[6] living inWest Berlin between 1985 and 1987, during years that turned out to be among the last of the divided Germany, gave him an insight intoGerman history and society.
Clark's academic focus started with thehistory of Prussia, with his earlier researches concentrating onPietism and on Judaism inPrussia as well as the power struggle, known as theKulturkampf, betweenBismarck's Prussian state and theCatholic Church. His scope has since broadened to embrace more generally the competitive relationships between religious institutions and the state in modern Europe. He is the author of a study of Christian–Jewish relations inPrussia,The Politics of Conversion. Missionary Protestantism and the Jews in Prussia, 1728–1941.[7]
Clark's best-selling history of Prussia,Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947[8] won several prizes. Its critical reception gave him a profile beyond the academic world. The German-language version of the book,Preußen. Aufstieg und Niedergang 1600–1947, won Clark the 2010German Historians' Prize [de], an award normally given to historians nearing the end of their careers. Clark remains (in 2014) the youngest-ever recipient of the triennial prize and only winner who is not a mother-tongue German-speaker.
In 17 chapters covering 800 pages,[9] Clark contends that Germany was "not the fulfillment of Prussia's destiny but its downfall".[10] Although the 19th-centuryKulturkampf was characterised by a peculiar intensity and radicalism, Clark's study of sources in different European languages enabled him to spell out how closely the Prussian experience of church-state rivalry resembled events elsewhere in Europe. In that way, the book rebuts the traditionalSonderweg view by which throughout the 20th century, mainstream historians placed great emphasis on the "differentness" of Germany's historical path before and during the 19th century. Clark downplays the perceived uniqueness of the reform agenda pursued by Prussia between 1815-48, and believes the political and economic significance of theGerman customs union, established in 1834, came to be discovered and then overstated by historians only retrospectively and in the light of much-later political developments.
With his critical biography of thelast German Kaiser,Kaiser Wilhelm II,[11] Clark aims to offer correctives to many of the traditional positions presented inJ. C. G. Röhl's three-volume biography of Wilhelm.
Clark's study of the outbreak of theFirst World War,The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914, appeared in English in 2012;[12] the German version (Die Schlafwandler: Wie Europa in den Ersten Weltkrieg zog) followed in 2013. The book challenges the imputation, which had been widely accepted by mainstream scholars since1919, of a peculiar "war guilt" attached to theGerman Empire. He instead maps the complex mechanism of events and misjudgements that led to war.[13][14] Risks inherent in the strategies pursued by the various governments involved had been taken before without catastrophic consequences, which now enabled leaders to follow similar approaches without adequately evaluating or recognising those risks. Among international experts, many saw the presentation by Clark of his research and insights as groundbreaking.[15]
In Germany, where the book received much critical attention, not all reactions were positive.Volker Ullrich contended that Clark's analysis largely disregards the pressure for war coming from Germany'spowerful military establishment.[16] According toHans-Ulrich Wehler, Clark had diligently researched the sources covering the war's causes from the German side only to "eliminate [many of them] with bewildering one-sidedness". Wehler attributed the sales success of the book in Germany to a "deep-seated need [on the part of German readers], no longer so constrained by the taboos characteristic of the later twentieth century, to free themselves from the burdensome allegations of national war guilt".[17] However, Clark observes that the current German debate about the start of the war is obfuscated by its link to their moral repugnance at the Nazi era.[18]
Clark is the co-editor withWolfram Kaiser of a transnational study of secular-clerical conflict in 19th-century Europe (Culture Wars. Catholic-Secular Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Europe, Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2003), and the author of numerous articles and essays. Clark presented theBBC Four documentary programme "Frederick the Great and the Enigma of Prussia".[19] He also presented and narrated the 2017ZDF documentaryThe Story of Europe.[20]
Since 1998, Clark has been a series-editor of the scholarly book seriesNew Studies in European History fromCambridge University Press.[21] He is a Fellow of theAustralian Academy of the Humanities[22] and a prominent member of theArbeitsgemeinschaft zur Preußischen Geschichte [de] (en: Prussian History Working Group).[23] Since 2009 he has been a member of the Preußische Historische Kommission [Prussian Historical Commission], and since 2010 a senior advisory (non-voting) member of theGerman Historical Institute London and of theOtto-von-Bismarck-Stiftung [de] [Bismarck Foundation] inFriedrichsruh.[21] In 2010, Clark was elected a member of theBritish Academy.[21]
Clark work on German history is extensive, and notable for the breadth of the periods it encompasses and its particular interest in the emergence of German identity and the German state fromPrussia. He has dealt consistently with the Prussian state and its complex relationship with Germany and German ethnic groups. In terms of the scope of his writing, he is notable for frequently drawing from several centuries of history in individual works.
His first book,The Politics of Conversion: Missionary Protestantism and the Jews in Prussia, 1728-1941 (1995) cantered on the confluence ofPietism andLutheran missionaries, and their attempts in Berlin and Königsberg to achieve theConversion of the Jews (future event) as part of broader efforts within the Prussian state to achieve national integration. Likewise, inIron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947 (2006) he covers the life of the Prussian state and its transformation into Wilhelmine Germany and subsequent downfall. In particular this work has been praised for its 'magisterial account runs to almost seven hundred pages of text and manages to build on the vast scholarship occasioned by the Preussenwelle [Prussian Wave] without drowning in it.'[24] The Prussian Wave refers to the upsurge of interest in German popular culture and historiography in Prussian culture and the Prussian state. Likewise, in one of his best known works,The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 (2013) Clark switches breadth of period for geography and scope, arguing that the First World War was more the result of negligence and the inefficiencies of European diplomacy than any particular animosity between the sovereigns involved.[25]
Clark and his wife,Nina Lübbren [de], have two sons.[26]
Books written
Books edited
Articles
Films
Mit seinen neuen Thesen zum Kriegsausbruch 1914 provoziert der britische Historiker Christopher Clark heftige Debatten. In Potsdam stellte er sich seinen Kritikern – mit erstaunlichem Ergebnis.
| Academic offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Cambridge Regius Professor of History 2014–present | Incumbent |
