Robert Gildea

{{Infobox academic

| honorific_prefix = Professor

| name = Robert Gildea

| honorific_suffix = {{Post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|FBA|FRHistS}}

| image = RobertGildea.png

| caption = Gildea in 2024

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| birth_date = 12 September 1952

| birth_place = England, UK

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| nationality = British

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| occupation = Historian and academic

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| title = Professor of Modern History

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| awards = Wolfson History Prize

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| alma_mater = Merton College, Oxford (B.A.)
St Antony's College, Oxford (D.Phil.)

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| doctoral_advisor = Theodore Zeldin

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| workplaces = King's College, London
Merton College, Oxford
Worcester College, Oxford

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| main_interests = French history, French education

| notable_works = Marianne in Chains (2002)

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Robert Nigel Gildea {{Post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|FBA|FRHistS}} (born 12 September 1952) is Emeritus Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford and is the author of several influential books on 20th century French history.

Biography

Robert Gildea was born on 12 September 1952. He was educated at Dulwich College and at Merton College, Oxford, before attending St Antony's for a D.Phil under the supervision of Theodore Zeldin. His D.Phil. research was in French provincial education. Before being appointed Fellow in Modern History at Merton in 1979, he was a lecturer at King's College, London.

For his 2002 book Marianne in Chains,{{cite book|title=Marianne in Chains: In Search of the German Occupation 1940–1945 |year=2002 |location=London |publisher=Macmillan |isbn=978-0-333-78230-9}}, {{cite book|title=Marianne in Chains: Daily Life in the Heart of France During the German Occupation |date=June 2004 |edition=Paperback |location=London |publisher=Picador |isbn=0-312-42359-4}} a study of life in provincial France during the German occupation, Gildea won the prestigious Wolfson History Prize. The book, however, outraged members of the French academic elite{{Citation needed|date=December 2018}} through its documented claims that life in France had not been as adversely affected by the Nazi occupation because many French people had co-operated with the German invaders – far more so than previously believed{{Verify source|date=December 2018}}.

He was elevated to the position of Professor of Modern History from being Professor of Modern French History in September 2006, becoming a Professorial Fellow of Worcester College.{{cite web|url=http://www.history.ox.ac.uk/faculty/staff/profile/gildea/teaching.html |title=Profile Professor Robert Gildea |work=University of Oxford Faculty of History |access-date=20 February 2014}} He retired in 2020, being succeeded by Patricia Clavin as Professor of Modern History in 2021.{{cite web |title=Professor Robert Gildea |url=https://www.merton.ox.ac.uk/people/professor-robert-gildea |website=Merton College, Oxford |access-date=3 December 2023}}{{cite web |title=Patricia Clavin appointed as the new Professor of Modern History |url=https://www.history.ox.ac.uk/article/patricia-clavin-appointed-as-the-new-professor-of-modern-history |website=Faculty of History, University of Oxford |access-date=3 December 2023}}

On 10 June 2021 in a BBC Radio 4 interview he declared he was joining other concerned academics in boycotting Oriel College for its refusal to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes from the façade of the building, erected using money donated by Rhodes.BBC Radio 4 'Today' programme, 10 June 2021.

=Broadcasting=

Gildea has made five appearances on the BBC Radio 4 series In Our Time, discussing Madame Bovary (2007);{{cite web |title=In Our Time, Madame Bovary |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007s1xs |website=BBC Radio 4 |access-date=23 May 2025}} the Statue of Liberty (2008);{{cite web |title=In Our Time, The Statue of Liberty |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b008xh3x |website=BBC Radio 4 |access-date=23 May 2025}} the Dreyfus affair (2009);{{cite web |title=In Our Time, The Dreyfus Affair |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00n1l95 |website=BBC Radio 4 |access-date=23 May 2025}} Tocqueville's Democracy in America (2018);{{cite web |title=In Our Time, Tocqueville: Democracy in America |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09vyw0x |website=BBC Radio 4 |access-date=23 May 2025}} and the 1870-71 siege of Paris (2020).{{cite web |title=In Our Time, The Siege of Paris |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000d8rv |website=BBC Radio 4 |access-date=23 May 2025}}

Personal life

Gildea lives in Oxford with his wife, Lucy-Jean, and four children.

In May 2016, Gildea was one of 300 prominent historians, including Simon Schama and Niall Ferguson, who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian, telling voters that if they chose to leave the European Union on 23 June, they would be condemning Britain to irrelevance.{{cite web|url=http://historiansforbritainineurope.org |title=Historians for Britain IN Europe |publisher=Historians for Britain IN Europe |access-date=2017-01-17 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170519151249/http://historiansforbritainineurope.org/ |archive-date=19 May 2017 }}{{cite web|url=http://www.historytoday.com/various-authors/fog-channel-historians-isolated |title=Fog in Channel, Historians Isolated |publisher=History Today |date=2015-05-18 |access-date=2017-01-17 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161230160012/http://www.historytoday.com/various-authors/fog-channel-historians-isolated |archive-date=30 December 2016 }}

Bibliography

{{cite book |title=Barricades and Borders : Europe 1800–1914 |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1987}}
{{cite book |title=France since 1945 |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2002}}
{{cite book |title=Marianne in Chains: in Search of the German Occupation, 1940–1945 |location=London |publisher=Macmillan |year=2002}}
{{cite book |title=Children of the Revolution: The French, 1799–1914 |location=London |publisher=Penguin |year=2008}}
« La génération française de 1968 : points de vue personnel et politique ». L’Amuse-Bouche : La revue française de Yale. The French-Language Journal at Yale University. 1/1 (2010): 39-48.
{{cite journal |date=November 2013 |title=Napoleon : saint, sinner or both? |department=Reviews |journal=History Today |volume=63 |issue=11 |pages=58–59}} Review essay.
{{cite book |title=Fighters in the Shadows: a New History of the French Resistance |isbn=9780674286108 |lccn=2015018188 |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |publisher=The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press |year=2015}}
Empires of the Mind: The Colonial Past and the Politics of the Present. Oxford University Press (2019).

References

External links

[http://www.history.ox.ac.uk/faculty/staff/profile/gildea.html University of Oxford: Robert Gildea]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLzj9nrO5Lg Robert Gildea on WW2 at YouTube] Retrieved 3 August 2020

Category:1952 births

Category:Living people

Category:Academics of King's College London

Category:Alumni of Merton College, Oxford

Category:Alumni of St Antony's College, Oxford

Category:20th-century English historians

Category:Fellows of Merton College, Oxford

Category:Fellows of Worcester College, Oxford

Category:Historians of Vichy France

Category:British historians of World War II

Category:History Today people

Category:People educated at Dulwich College