sheehan

James J. Sheehan, MA, PhD

  • Dickason Professor in the Humanities, Emeritus
  • Professor of History, Emeritus
  • Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, by courtesy
  • Affiliated faculty at The Europe Center

Building 200, Room 209
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-2024

(650) 723-9569 (voice)
(650) 725-0597 (fax)

Biography

James Sheehan is the Dickason Professor in the Humanities at Stanford, a professor of history, and an FSI senior fellow by courtesy. He is an expert on the history of modern Europe. He has written widely on the history of Germany, including four books and many articles. His most recent book on Germany is Museums in the German Art World: From the End of the Old Regime to the Rise of Modernism (Oxford Press, 2000). He has recently written a new book about war and the European state in the 20th century, Where Have All the Soldiers Gone? addressing the transformation of Europe's states from military to cilivian actors, interested primarily in economic growth, prosperity, and security. His other recent publications are chapters on "Democracy" and "Political History," which appear in the International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences (2002), and a chapter on "Germany," which appears in The Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment (Oxford University Press, 2002).

Sheehan is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. He has many won many grants and awards, including the Officer's Cross of the German Order of Merit. In 2004 he was elected president of the American Historical Association. He received a BA from Stanford (1958) and an MA and PhD from the University of California at Berkeley (1959, 1964).

publications

Commentary
March 2017

Europe after Brexit

Author(s)
cover link Europe after Brexit
Commentary
January 2017

Election 2016: A Postmortem

Author(s)
cover link Election 2016: A Postmortem
Commentary
May 2015

'Goebbels: A Biography,' by Peter Longerich

Author(s)
cover link 'Goebbels: A Biography,' by Peter Longerich

In The News

berlinwall
News

The fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years later

cover link The fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years later