Biography
Specialisation in central European history in twentieth century. Teach introductory courses in early modern, modern, and post-war European history as well as world history survey courses. Married with two children who keep me ‘young at heart’. Involved in a local environmental monitoring committee, an executive in the local soccer association, and sing for my brunch virtually every Sunday as part of a church choir. Enjoy puttering around an older home in my free time. Rest of the time is given over to reading and writing and attempting to make sense of it all – an illusive project that will likely never find fruition.
Education
- B.A. (Hon.) University of Toronto, 1981
- D.Phil Magdalen College, University of Oxford, 1988
- M.B.A. Wilfrid Laurier University, 1999
Research and teaching interests
- Central Europe in twentieth century
- Borderland relationships between Germans and neighbouring peoples
- Biography of post-war German-Canadian immigrants from Waterloo Region and their integration
- German-speaking diaspora and its evolution
I enjoy teaching survey courses to make students aware of how the past influences the present. My aim is to stimulate students by compelling them to view the past from a different perspective from which they are familiar. I constantly challenge students to assess and reassess their assumptions; by digging deeper and being inclusive, a more accurate truth about the past can be reconstructed.
Courses taught
- HIST 102 War and Society in Europe, 1914-1945
- HIST 110 A History of the Western World (I)
- HIST 130 The modern World in Historical Perspective
- HIST 191 The Evolution of Western Technology
- HIST 243: Changing Workplace and Family, Europe 1750 to the present
- HIST 262: Early Modern Europe, 1450-1800
- HIST 263: Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth Centuries
- HIST 264: Western Europe since 1945
- HIST 291: East-Central Europe to 1945
- HIST 341: Occupied Europe, 1938-1945
Recent publications
- Schulze, Mathias, James M. Skidmore, David G. John, Grit Liebscher, Sebastian Siebel-Achenbach (eds.), German Diasporic Experiences: Identity, Migration, and Loss. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier Press, 2008. ISBN 978-1-55458-027-9.
- Niederschlesien 1942 bis 1949: Alliierte Diplomatie und Nachkriegswirklichkeit. Würzburg, Bavaria: Bergstadtverlag Wilhelm Gottlieb Korn, 2006. ISBN-13 978-3-87057-274-7 and ISBN-10 3-87057-274-4.
- Lower Silesia from Nazi Germany to communist Poland, 1942-1949. Published simultaneously by Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan Press, 1994. ISBN 0-333-53272-4; and New York: Saint Martin’s Press, 1994. ISBN 0-312-08533-8 and LC92-14070.