Robert A. Rosenstone | |
|---|---|
 Rosenstone in 2008 | |
| Born | 1936 (age 89–90) |
| Alma mater | University of California, Los Angeles |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | history,visual media |
| Institutions | California Institute of Technology |
 | Thisbiography of a living personneeds additionalcitations forverification. Please help by addingreliable sources.Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced orpoorly sourcedmust be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentiallylibelous. Find sources: "Robert A. Rosenstone" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(July 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Robert A. Rosenstone (born 1936) is an American author, historian, and Professor Emeritus of history at theCalifornia Institute of Technology. He studies the relationship betweenhistory and the visual media. He has written two books on the topic,Visions of the Past: the Challenge of Film to Our Idea of History (Harvard, 1995), andHistory on Film / Film on History (Pearson, 2006, 2nd edition 2012), and has edited a collection of essays,Revisioning History: Film and the Construction of a New Past (Princeton, 1995). His most recent addition to the field, co-edited with Constantin Parvulescu, isA Blackwell Companion to Historical Film (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013)
Rosenstone was born inMontreal,Quebec, the son ofJewishimmigrants. He lived most of his life inLos Angeles,California. He received a Ph.D degree in history from theUniversity of California, Los Angeles in 1966. He was assistant professor at theUniversity of Oregon from 1965 to 1966. He was a professor of history at theCaltech from 1966 and is now professor emeritus. He lives in Los Angeles.
Rosenstone has been a visiting professor atOxford University, theUniversity of Manchester,St. Andrews University, theUniversity of Barcelona, theEuropean University Institute (Florence),Kyushu University (Japan), theUniversity of La Laguna (Canary Islands), andTolima University (Colombia).
In his early career, Rosenstone worked on topics of social and political radicalism. This resulted in two books,Crusade of the Left: The Lincoln Battalion in the Spanish Civil War (Pegasus, 1969, republished Transaction 2009), andRomantic Revolutionary: A Biography of John Reed (Knopf, 1975; republished Harvard, 1989).
Rosenstone has since focused on the topic of how to write about the past, particularly emphasizing and encouraging innovative forms of historical narrative. His bookMirror in the Shrine: American Encounters with Meiji Japan (Harvard, 1988) was an experimental, multi-voiced piece of history. As a way of encouraging such innovation, Rosenstone helped to found the journalRethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice in 1997.[1]
In 1989 he was asked to create a film section forThe American Historical Review.[2] He has been on the editorial board of several journals, includingFilm Historia (Barcelona),Frames (St. Andrews University);[3]California Quarterly, andReviews in American History.
He has written several works of fiction involving historical characters and events, including a book of stories titledThe Man Who Swam into History: The (Mostly) True Story of my Jewish Family (Texas, 2002), and a historical novel based on the life of Russian writerIsaac Babel,King of Odessa (Northwestern, 2003). His most recent novel is set in contemporarySpain,Red Star, Crescent Moon: A Muslim - Jewish Love Story (2008).
Rosenstone has worked on several films, both dramatic features and documentaries. His biography ofJohn Reed, "Romantic Revolutionary", (Knopf, 1975) was used as the basis for the filmReds, on which he worked as historical consultant for seven years.
Rosenstone has been awarded four scholarships by theNational Endowment for the Humanities, three from theFulbright program, and has been a research fellow at both theEast–West Center (Honolulu) from 1981 to 1982 and theGetty Research Institute[4] from 2004 to 2005. His books and essays have been translated into 11 languages, including French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Czech, Polish, German, Hungarian, Korean, Japanese, and Hebrew. He has lectured at more than 50 universities on six continents.
