Sir Christopher Munro Clark, FBA (born 14 March 1960) is an Australian historian working in England. He is the twenty-second Regius Professor of History at the University of Cambridge. In 2015 he was knighted for his services to Anglo-German relations.
Video Christopher Clark
Education and academic promotions
He was educated at Sydney Grammar School between 1972 and 1978, the University of Sydney where he studied History, and between 1985 and 1987 the Freie Universität Berlin.
He received his PhD at the University of Cambridge, having been a member of Pembroke College, Cambridge from 1987 to 1991. He is Professor in Modern European History at the University of Cambridge and since 1991 has been a Fellow of St Catharine's College where he is currently Director of Studies in History. In 2003 Clark was appointed University Lecturer in Modern European History, and in 2006 Reader in Modern European History. His Cambridge University professorship in history followed in 2008. In September 2014, he succeeded Richard J. Evans as Regius Professor of History at Cambridge. In the Birthday honours of June 2015 Professor Clark was knighted on the recommendation of the Foreign Secretary for his services to Anglo-German relations.
Maps Christopher Clark
Professional life
As he acknowledges in the foreword to Iron Kingdom, living in West Berlin between 1985 and 1987, during what turned out to be almost the last years of the divided Germany, gave him an insight into German history and society.
Earlier work
Clark's academic focus starts with the History of Prussia, his earlier researches concentrating on Pietism and on Judaism in Prussia, as well as the power struggle, known as the Kulturkampf, between the Prussian state under Bismarck and the Catholic Church. From this his scope has 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 in Prussia (The Politics of Conversion. Missionary Protestantism and the Jews in Prussia, 1728-1941; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).
Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947
Professor Clark's best-selling history of Prussia (Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947; London: Penguin, 2006) won several prestigious prizes and its critical reception gave him a public profile that reached well beyond the academic world. The German language version of the book, entitled Preußen. Aufstieg und Niedergang 1600-1947, won for Clark the 2010 German Historians' Prize, an award normally given to historians nearing the ends of their careers. Clark remains (in 2014) the youngest ever recipient of this triennial prize, and the only one of the winners not to have approached his work as a mother-tongue German speaker. In 17 chapters covering 800 pages, Clark contends that Germany was "not the fulfillment of Prussia's destiny but its downfall". Although the nineteenth century Kulturkampf was characterised by a peculiar intensity and radicalism, Clark's careful study of sources in several different European languages enables him to spell out just how closely the Prussian experience of church - state rivalry resembled events elsewhere in Europe. In this way the book powerfully rebuts the traditional Sonderweg bandwagon, whereby throughout the twentieth century mainstream historians have placed great emphasis on the "differentness" of Germany's historical path, before and during the nineteenth century. Clark downplays the perceived uniqueness of the much vaunted reform agenda pursued by Prussia between 1815 and 1848. He believes that the political and economic significance of the German 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.
Kaiser Wilhelm II
With his critical biography of the last German Kaiser (Kaiser Wilhelm II; Harlow: Longman, 2000, series "Profiles in Power"), Clark aims to offer correctives to many of the traditional positions presented in J. C. G. Röhl's three-volume biography of Wilhelm.
The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914
Christopher Clark's study of the outbreak of the First World War, The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914, appeared in English in 2012: the German version followed in 2013. The book challenges the imputation, hitherto widely accepted by mainstream scholars since 1919, of a peculiar "war guilt" attaching to the German Empire, instead mapping carefully the complex mechanism of events and misjudgements that led to war. There was, in 1914, nothing inevitable about it. Risks inherent in the strategies pursued by the various governments involved had been taken before without catastrophic consequences: this now enabled leaders to follow similar approaches while not adequately evaluating or recognising those risks. Among international experts many saw this presentation by Clark of his research and insights as groundbreaking.
In Germany itself, where the book received much critical attention, reactions were not all positive. Volker Ullrich contended that Clark's analysis largely disregards the pressure for war coming from Germany's powerful military establishment. According to Hans-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" ("verblüffend einseitig eliminiert"). Warming to his theme, 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".
Other work
He is also the co-editor with Wolfram Kaiser of a transnational study of secular-clerical conflict in nineteenth-century Europe (Culture Wars. Catholic-Secular Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Europe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), and the author of numerous articles and essays. Professor Clark presented the BBC Four documentary programme "Frederick the Great and the Enigma of Prussia", most recently broadcast 22 October 2011 (as of November 2013).
Since 1998 Christopher Clark has been a series-editor of the scholarly book series New Studies in European History from Cambridge University Press. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and a prominent member of the Mannheim based Arbeitsgemeinschaft zur Preußischen Geschichte (Prussian History Working Group)]]. Since 2009 has been a member of the Preußischen Historischen Kommission (Prussian Historical Commission), and since 2010 a senior advisory (non-voting) member of the London-based German Historical Institute and of the Otto-von-Bismarck-Stiftung (Bismarck foundation) in Friedrichsruh. 2010 was also the year in which Clark was elected a member of the British Academy.
Personal
Clark is married to the art historian Nina Lübbren, like him a former student at the Freie Universität Berlin, and to whom he dedicated Iron Kingdom: Lübbren warmly acknowledges his support and assistance in her own academic work. They have two sons.
Awards and decorations
- 2007 Wolfson History Prize awarded for Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947
- 2007 H-Soz-u-Kult prize "Das historische Buch"
- 2007 Queensland Premier's Literary Awards, History Book Award for Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947
- 2007 General History Prize, New South Wales Premier's History Awards, for Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947
- 2010
- In October 2010, Germany awarded Clark the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany as his "research had contributed greatly to German-British relations". The honour was conferred by the German ambassador Georg Boomgaarden during a reception at his official London residence.
- Another German award was bestowed on Clark for his book Preußen: Aufstieg und Niedergang 1600-1947 by German President Christian Wulff in November 2010. Chris Clark was the first foreigner to be awarded the German Historians' Prize [Deutscher Historikerpreis].
- 2013 Cundill Prize, finalist, for The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went To War In 1914
- 2013 Los Angeles Times Book Prize (History), winner for The Sleepwalkers
- 2013 Hessell-Tiltman Prize, shortlist for The Sleepwalkers
- 2015 Laura Shannon Prize, for The Sleepwalkers
- 2015 Knight Bachelor
Publications
Books
- Clark, Christopher M. (2012). The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914. London: Allen Lane. ISBN 9780713999426. LCCN 2012515665.
- Clark, Christopher M. (2006). Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674023854. LCCN 2006043076. Published in Germany as Preußen: Aufstieg und Niedergang 1600-1947 by DVA, 2007
- Clark, Christopher M.; Kaiser, Wolfram, eds. (2003). Culture Wars: Secular-Catholic Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Cambridge, UK & New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521809975. LCCN 2003273877.
- Clark, Christopher M. (2000). Kaiser Wilhelm II: A Life in Power. Harlow, England & New York: Longman. ISBN 0582245591. LCCN 00030939.
- Clark, Christopher M. (1995). The Politics of Conversion: Missionary Protestantism and the Jews in Prussia, 1728-1941. Oxford Clarendon Press & New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198204566. LCCN 95154541.
Books edited
- Culture Wars: Secular-Catholic conflict in Nineteenth-Century Europe. (with Wolfram Kaiser) Cambridge University Press, 2003
References
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