The late 1980s was the time when Eugen Weber was winding down his long stellar career at the University of California at Los Angeles. He started working at UCLA in 1956. When a request was made to him by the WGBH for him to produce and present the Western Tradition video series program for the general public early 1987 he was celebrating thirty years at UCLA. It is fairly accurate to say that UCLA made Eugen Weber and Eugen Weber made UCLA.
Eugen Weber made UCLA visible by virtue of him being such a great historian and great author. In part Eugen Weber contributed to the greatness of UCLA as we know it today. First as a well known respected historian and author, his books published by respected publishers. Second as a leader. He was first the chairman of the History Department. And from there he was to be Director of the UCLA campus in France. Then he was selected to become the Dean of the Social Sciences. Afterwards he became the Dean of the College of Letters and Science.
Within UCLA history records revere him not as a worthy historian and author but as a leader, one of those rare leaders UCLA had and that helped UCLA to be one of the top universities in the world.
Outside UCLA, however, Eugen Weber is known for his remarkable brilliance as an author and historian.
This was to be the problem and difficulty that haunted Eugen Weber all his years at UCLA. He loved to teach and publish. But at the same time the UCLA wanted him to lead the University.
Eugen Weber remarks that one of the main reason that he decided to take the position of UCLA Director abroad overseas in France was that he did not want to be forced to become Chairman of the History Department. He left the UCLA main campus to France so that he can have space to teach, research and write. And that was to happen, that it was while in France that he wrote the much talked about book Peasants Into Frenchmen. Although he was complaining about the lack of adequate libraries in France.
Eugen Weber as Dean of the College of Letters and Science was remarkable. He made the departments within the college cohesive. Eugen Weber was educated at Cambridge University in Britain. He sought to strike a balance between the British system and the American system.
The American of four years undergraduate education (as opposed to three years in Britain); two years graduate education for the masters and additional three years to complete the doctoral education before dissertation. However, he more or less, still wanted to inject somewhat the British academic culture. In the British system, undergraduates focus on their discipline, only; in the American undergraduate system, students are generalists though they choose a major.
That was a great innovation in a public university. And that led to the University wanted to keep him in its management systems, for some time Eugen Weber went along with that idea though grudgingly. But in the long run he rebelled and went back to teaching history, researching about history and publishing.
The Western Tradition in a way was capping his career. This was a monumental work to do. It was not about research, writing and publishing. He was now venturing into unfamiliar waters of TV presenting. And he was brilliant. That project saw him tracing the Western Tradition and Civilization from the Dawn of humanity to the Present. It was a long walk and comprised of 52 half hour video lecture series.
The Western Tradition was to become the anchor program show at the Public Broadcasting Service. Now Eugen Weber was a rock star and visible. And he did not disappoint. As he said in his book My France, he always wanted to present history not to specialists but the common man and woman “those are the ones I always wanted to touch”.
Eugen Weber has an aggressive down to earth demeanor, and his history mirrors his character traits.
Further, Eugen Weber is diverse. He was born in Romania and he considers himself a Thracian by roots. As a boy he was living in England, he was attending boarding schools there. About his studies in high school, he tell us that he was horrible with maths and science. But he liked reading, and suggest that he could have been a fiction writer because he has lively imagination.
Eugen Weber after high school went on and applied to be a soldier in the British army. He was admitted and was to fight Adolf Hitler during the Second World War. He rose to the army status of captain. But he saw his interest in the army waning, and by the time the Second World War ended he was done. He quit. And was to enter into the path of scholar until his passing away in 2007.
The other factor that makes him diverse, the fact that he also lived in France, and was to be married there.
Romania borders Ukraine. Ukraine used to be the seed beat of the Union of the Soviet Socialists Republic. Even Leon Trosky the leader of the Communist Party was Ukrainian.
So looking at his life you see a man that is clearly marked to weave the history of humanity from the Dawn of human beings. He was encyclopedic in his presentation of history. He left nothing behind; he is all sweeping even presenting to us the history of pleasure, the poor and common life. Like he produced a lecture called Common Life in the Middle Ages.
His lecture on the Dark Ages he tell us about boys driving pigs into the forest. Usually history is about kings and queens and in the modern era includes presidents, after all, presidents are really kings of their respective countries,cthe welds tremendous power on people like old kings. Eugen Weber broke away from the mode and introduced an innovation, retreating from the mainstream he entered the territory of the poor, swineheads, and women.
The New York Times calls Eugen Weber an authority on France. I see that observation by the New York Times giving a false impression.
Eugen Weber wrote great books Western Tradition some of those are:
Making reference to Eugen Weber as an authority of French history is far too misleading. Eugen Weber was an authority on the History of the Western Civilization. He has been teaching the Western Civilization since the 1950s until he passed on in 2007 as emeritus historian at the UCLA. To call Eugen Weber as a French historian is partial and fatal understanding.
Some if the books Eugen Weber published are as follows:
A Modern History of Europe: Men, Cultures and Societies from the Renaissance to the Present, 1971. Number of pages: 1245
The Western Tradition From the Renaissance to the Atomic Age, 1959. The book is 891 pages in length.
The European Right: A Historical Profile, 1965
Imagined histories : American historians interpret the past, 1998, [contributing author]
Romania : 40 years (1944-1984)
Georgescu, Vlad.; Georgetown University. Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1985
Varieties of Fascism: Doctrines of Revolution in the Twentieth Century, 1964
The Western Tradition: From the Ancient World to Louis XIV, 1980, pages: 919
Apocalypses: Prophesies, Cults, and Millennial Beliefs Through the Ages, 1999
Movements, Currents, Trends: Aspects of European Thought in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, 1992, pages: 618
