Thomas Weber

About

Thomas Weber is professor of history and international affairs as well as the founding director of the Centre of Global Security and Governance at the University of Aberdeen. He also holds positions at the Center for Advanced Security, Strategic and Integration Studies at the University of Bonn and at the Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies at the Munk School for Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto. Holding a DPhil from the University of Oxford, Weber previously taught or held fellowships at Harvard University, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Chicago, and the University of Glasgow.

Weber’s expertise pertains to authoritarian populism and the threat it poses to democracy; inter- and intrastate conflict and conflict resolution since the nineteenth century; processes of politicization, radicalization, transformation, and regime change; the creation of resilient liberal values, norms, and institutions; and the impact of unresolved historical injustices on the twenty-first century.

His first book, Łódź Ghetto Album (a collection of photographs by Henryk Ross, for which he wrote the introduction), won a 2004 Golden Light Award and a 2005 Infinity Award. His next book, Our Friend “The Enemy,” was a recipient of the 2008 Duc d’Arenberg History Prize. His third book, Hitler’s First War, received the 2010 Arthur Goodzeit Book Award of the New York Military Affairs Symposium for the best book on military history, while Becoming Hitler: The Making of a Nazi was an El Mundo top-ten best seller and was short-listed for the 2018 Elizabeth Longford Prize. Weber also is the editor of a forthcoming book on the lessons for the twenty-first century of the death of democracy in 1933 Germany.

Thomas Weber serves as an analyst and op-ed contributor on contemporary international affairs and history for news outlets and organizations on both sides of the Atlantic.