David Blackbourn

David Blackbourn, born in 1949, is a historian of modern German history. In 2012, he took up the Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair of History at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. Previously, he was Coolidge Professor of History at Harvard University, where he also directed the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies. In 1980, he co-authored “Mythen deutscher Geschichtsschreibung” with Geoff Eley, helping to spark a debate about the German “Sonderweg,” or special path. His 2007 study “Die Eroberung der Natur. Eine Geschichte der Deutschen Landschaft” examines the history of the German landscape.