Mark Mazower | |
|---|---|
| Born | Mark A. Mazower (1958-02-20)20 February 1958 (age 67) London, England |
| Occupations | Writer, historian |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | University of Oxford |
| Academic work | |
| Era | 20th and 21st century |
| Discipline | History |
| Institutions | Columbia University Birkbeck, University of London University of Sussex Princeton University |
| Notable works | Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century |
Mark Mazower (/məˈzaʊ.ər/; born 20 February 1958) is a British historian. His areas of expertise are Greece,the Balkans, and more generally,20th-century Europe. He isIra D. Wallach Professor of History atColumbia University in New York City.
Mazower was born inGolders Green and spent most of his early life in north London.[1] His mother was a physiotherapist and his father worked for Unilever.[1] His great-grandfather was Yiddish authorSholem Asch. During his youth, Mazower enjoyed playing the French horn and composing classical music, as well as readingclassical literature and philosophy.[1]
Mazower's father was ofRussian Jewish descent.[2] When Mazower began to write his bookWhat You Did Not Tell: A Russian Past and the Journey Home, he discovered that his grandfather, Max, was a member of theBund, a Jewishsocialist party, was involved inrevolutionary activities, and helped print illegal books inYiddish advocating socialism.[2] Max was regularly arrested by the Tsarist police and was imprisoned twice in Siberia, before eventually fleeing the country and settling in England in 1924.[2] Mazower also discovered that his grandparents continued to socialize withRussian-Jewish revolutionaries in Golders Green. Reflecting on the discovery, Mazower said:
Growing up in Golders Green was a weird experience for me because this place has no history. It was a big revelation to discover that Golders Green in the 1920s was full of these super-important worldanarchists, who were hanging out with my grandparents and recovering from the revolution. It suddenly made the whole place make sense.[2]
Mazower received his BA in Classics and Philosophy from theUniversity of Oxford in 1981 and his doctorate from the same university in 1988.[1] He also holds anMA inInternational Affairs fromJohns Hopkins University (1983). Prior to his arrival at Columbia, Mazower taught atBirkbeck, University of London, theUniversity of Sussex andPrinceton University.[1]
Mazower has also written for newspapers since 2002 such as theFinancial Times and forThe Independent contributing articles on international affairs and book reviews.[3][4]
He has been appointed to the Advisory Board of theEuropean Association of History Educators (EUROCLIO).
He is a member of the Editorial Board forPast & Present.[5]
Mazower has written extensively onGreek andBalkan history. His bookThe Balkans won theWolfson History Prize andInside Hitler's Greece: The Experience of Occupation, 1941–44, both won the LongmanHistory Today Award for Book of the Year.Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews 1430–1950 was theRunciman Prize andDuff Cooper Prize winner and was shortlisted for theHessell-Tiltman Prize.[6]
In addition, Mazower is more broadly concerned with 20th-centuryEuropean history. His bookDark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century argued that the triumph ofdemocracy in Europe was not inevitable but rather the result of chance and political agency on the part of citizens, subjects and leaders.
InHitler's Empire: Nazi Rule in Occupied Europe, Mazower comparedNazi German occupation policy in different European countries.
Mazower's book,No Enchanted Palace, was published in 2009. It narrates the origins of theUnited Nations and its strict ties tocolonialism and its predecessor organisation, theLeague of Nations. InGoverning the World (2012), this narrative is taken one step further, and the history ofinternational organisations in general is evaluated, beginning with theConcert of Europe at the start of the nineteenth century.
Mazower's 2018 inter-generational biography of his own family,What you did not tell, described their lives, education and politics and how it influences his interest in history, place, and the writing of biography.[7] Caroline Moorehead, an acclaimed biographer, on reviewing this book, wrote of his scholarly reconstruction of a family's life meticulously drawn from archives and collections of papers in the UK, Russia, Belgium and Israel and family diaries, letters and interviews.[8] Not simply a biographical narrative, Moorehead explains, since woven into it is a vast and rich picture of left wing European Jewry from the founding of theBund workers' union. His prodigious historical reach is matched by his affectionate portrait of a family and a people 'whose fight for justice was based on their own personal knowledge of poverty and exploitation.'
In his interview with Mazower, John Crace wrote Mazower "likes walking, football, swimming inHampstead ponds and dislikes commuting and celebrity culture".[1] In 2021, he was awarded an honorary Greek citizenship for "the promotion of Greece, its long history and culture to the international general public."[9]
Mazower's publications include:
