I came to UCSB in 1966, still working on completing my dissertation; the end of the school year 2013 marks 47 years of teaching here. In those years, and in previous ones at Harvard and Stanford, I have taught thousands of students in a wide variety of courses. As a classroom teacher, I am committed to upholding rigorous intellectual standards. My pedagogical goals are traditional in the sense that I still cherish the notion of a liberal arts education. At the same time, I enjoy new trends and innovations, most recently computer-related ones. My scholarly efforts, in both books and articles, have been generally in the direction of synthesis and breaking out of strictly academic confines. My books and a large proportion of my university courses have dealt with the history of extremist movements, both on the left (socialism, communism) and right (anti-Semitism, xenophobic nationalism), but I also teach survey courses dealing with modern Europe.
- Anti-Semitism before the Holocaust, (Longman, 2000).
- Esau’s Tears: Modern Anti-Semitism and the Rise of the Jews, (Cambridge University Press, 1997)
Antisemitism, A History (Oxford University Press, 2010 - The Jew Accused: Three Anti-Semitic Affairs (Dreyfus, Beilis, Frank), 1894-1915, (Cambridge University Press, 1991).
A History of Modern Europe, from 1815 to the Present - A History of European Socialism, (Yale University Press 1983)
- The ‘Red Years’: European Socialism vs. Bolshevism, 1919-21, (University of California Press, 1974)
- “Distinguished Teacher of the Year, 1993-4”, by Academic Senate, for Arts and Humanities.
- “Distinguished Senior Lecturer,” September 1994, University of Wisconsin
- Visiting Scholar, Wolfson College, Cambridge University, winter-spring 1997
- “Outstanding Faculty Member, 1999-2000” (Award of the Residence Halls)