Professor Donald Bloxham (BA, PhD, FRHistS)

Richard Pares Professor of European History; Modern History; Historiography

Biography

Background

I was appointed to a lectureship at Edinburgh in 2002. I was promoted to reader in 2006, to a personal chair in modern history in 2007, and to the established Richard Pares chair of history at the beginning of 2011.

Prior to arriving in Edinburgh I held a Leverhulme Special Research Fellowship for two years at Southampton University. In 2006 I was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize while in 2007 I was recipient of the University of Edinburgh's Chancellor's Award in the 'rising star' category, as well as the Raphael Lemkin Award for Genocide Scholarship from the Institute for the Study of Genocide. I am just coming to the end of a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship that began in 2017, and was awarded for the conduct of a project entitled ' The world we fought for? Systematic violence in Global History since 1945'.

Useful Links

Responsibilities & affiliations

I am on the editorial or advisory boards of the following journals:

  • Patterns of Prejudice
  • The Journal of Genocide Studies
  • Zeitschrift für Genozidforschung

I am a member of the advisory board of University College Dublin’s Centre for War Studies.

I am a member of the advisory board of the  Stanley Burton Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Leicester.

I am series editor, with Mark Levene of Southampton University, of the Oxford University Press monograph series 'Zones of Violence'.

Undergraduate teaching

I have taught honours level courses on the Holocaust, Genocide in the Modern World, Postwar Germany, and the Armenian Genocide.

Postgraduate teaching

I have taught Masters-level courses on Nazism and on Genocide in the Contemporary World.

Current PhD students supervised

Aubin, Claire - PhD - 'From Treblinka to Trenton: Tracking the post-War lives and trials of Holocaust perpetrators in the United States' - Primary

PhD - Belgian workers in Germany during the Second World War - Secondary

PhD - Great Britain and the Protection of Minorities, 1878-1939 - Primary

Research summary

Places: 

  • Africa
  • Asia
  • Australasia and the Pacific
  • Britain & Ireland
  • Europe
  • Latin America
  • Near East
  • North America

Themes: 

  • Comparative & Global History
  • Diplomatic History
  • Imperialism
  • Politics
  • Religion
  • War

Periods: 

  • Nineteenth Century
  • Twentieth Century & After

Research interests

One of my broad areas of research interest is the perpetration, punishment and representation/memory of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. I have written in depth on the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide and the post-Second World War war crimes trials, and on the comparative study of genocide. I am also interested more generally in political violence as broadly interpreted, and am currently concluding a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship which has focused on that topic.

The other broad area of research interest is the nature of history itself. So far this has resulted in two volumes, one concerned with the very point of studying the past and the other with the role of moral judgements in the writing of history.

Affiliated research centres

Project activity

I am coming to the end of a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship awarded for a project on extreme political violence across the world since 1945. The book will follow shortly.

When I have finished the violence book I will return to my work on the nature of History to complete a third volume, tentatively entitled 'History in Principle', on issues of historical theory and epistemology.

The list below is a subset of the information held on the University of Edinburgh PURE system, and includes Books, Chapters, Articles and Conference contributions. For a full list, including details of other publication types (e.g. reviews), please see the Edinburgh Research Explorer page for Professor Donald Bloxham.

Books - Authored

Bloxham, D. (2020) History and Morality. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Bloxham, D. (2020) Why History? A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Bloxham, D. (2009) The Final Solution: a genocide. Oxford University Press

Bloxham, D. (2008) Genocide, The World Wars, and the Unweaving of Europe. Vallentine Mitchell & Co Ltd

Books - Edited

Bloxham, D. and Gerwarth, R. (eds.) (2011) Political Violence in Europe's Long Twentieth Century. Cambridge University Press

Bloxham, D. and Moses, A. (eds.) (2010) The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Articles

Bloxham, D. (2013) From the International Military Tribunal to the Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings: the American confrontation with Nazi Criminality Revisited. History, 98(332), pp. 567–591DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-229X.12024

Bloxham, D. (2010) Europe, the Final Solution and the dynamics of intent. Patterns of Prejudice, 44(4), pp. 317-335DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/0031322X.2010.510711

Bloxham, D. (2008) Modernity and Genocide. European History Quarterly, 38, pp. 294-311

Bloxham, D. (2008) Organized Mass Murder: Structure, Participation and Motivation in Comparative Perspective. Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 22(2), pp. 203-45DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/hgs/dcn026

Bloxham, D. (2007) Armenian Terrorism and State Violence at the End of the Ottoman Empire. European Review of History, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 301-324

Bloxham, D. (2006) Beyond "Realism" and Legalism: A historical perspective on the limits of international humanitarian law. European Review , 14(4), pp. 457-70DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1062798706000482

Bloxham, D. (2006) In der Unordnung der Wirklichkeith. Der armenische Fall. Mittelweg 36, vol. 15, pp. 53-68

Bloxham, D. (2006) The Nuremberg Trials and the Occupation of Germany. Cardozo Law Review, 27, pp. 101-110

Bloxham, D. (2006) The Roots of American Genocide Denial: Near Eastern geopolitics and the interwar Armenian question. Journal of Genocide Research, 8(1), pp. 27-49DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14623520600552843

Bloxham, D. (2005) I processi per crimini di guerra nell' Europa del dopoguerra. Guerra ai civili stragi, violenza e crimini di guerra in Italia e in Europa durante la seconda guerra modiale, vo. 2, pp. 147-76

Bloxham, D. (2005) Rethinking the Armenian Genocide. History Today, 55(6), pp. 28-30

Bloxham, D. (2004) The occupation experience and the genocidal past in western Germany, 1945-6. European History Quarterly, 34(3), pp. 305-335DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0265691404044141

Bloxham, D. (2003) British war crimes trial policy in Germany, 1945-57: Implementation and collapse. Journal of British Studies, 42(1), pp. 91-118DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/342687

Bloxham, D. (2003) The Armenian genocide of 1915-16: cumulative radicalisation and the development of a destruction policy. Past & Present: A Journal of Historical Studies, 181, pp. 141-91

Bloxham, D. (2002) The Trial that Never Was: why there was no Second International Trial of Major War Criminals at Nuremberg. History, 87(285), pp. 41-60DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-229X.00213

Bloxham, D. (2002) Three imperialisms and a Turkish Nationalism: international stresses, imperial disintegration and the Armenian Genocide. Patterns of Prejudice, 36(4), pp. 37-58DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/003132202128811547

Bloxham, D. (2001) A survey of Jewish Slave Labour in the Nazi System. Journal of Holocaust Education, 10, pp. 25-59

Bloxham, D. (2000) Extermination through work: Jewish Slave Labour under the Third Reich'. Holocaust Educational Trust Research Papers, vol.1, no. 1, pp. 01-37

Bloxham, D. (1999) Punishing German soldiers during the Cold War; the case of Erich von Manstein. Patterns of Prejudice, 33, pp. 25-45

Bloxham, D. (1998) Exhibiting Racism: Cultural Imperialism, Genocide and Representation. Rethinking History, vol 2, no. 3, pp. 349-358

Bloxham, D. (1995) On the memory of the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust Educaiton. Journal of Holocaust Education, 4, pp. 74-86

Chapters

Bloxham, D. (2017) The murder of European Jewry: Nazi genocide in continental perspective. In: Pendas, D., Roseman, M. and Wetzell, R. (eds.) Beyond the Racial State: Rethinking Nazi Germany. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 58-94DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316691700.003

Bloxham, D. and Waterlow, J. (2015) War crimes trials. In: Bosworth, R. and Maiolo, J. (eds.) The Cambridge History of the Second World War. Cambridge University Press

Kieser, H. and Bloxham, D. (2014) Genocide. In: Winter, J. (ed.) The Cambridge History of the First World War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 585-614DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHO9780511675669

Bloxham, D. (2013) "Nurnberg" als Prozess. IMT, NMT und institutionelle Lerneffekte. In: Priemel, K. and Stiller, A. (eds.) Die Nürnberger Militärtribunale zwischen Geschichte, Gerechtigkeit und Rechtschöpfung. Hamburger Edition, pp. 493-524

Bloxham, D. (2012) The Holocaust and European History. In: Stone, D. (ed.) The Holocaust and Historical Methodology. New York: Berghahn Books

Bloxham, D. (2011) Comparative Genocide. In: Dreyfus, J. and Langton, D. (eds.) Writing the Holocaust. Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 146-165

Bloxham, D. and Gerwarth, R. (2011) Europe in the World: systems and cultures of violence. In: Bloxham, D. and Gerwarth, R. (eds.) Political Violence in Twentieth-Century Europe. Cambridge University Press, pp. 11-39

Bloxham, D. and Moses, A. (2011) Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing. In: Bloxham, D. and Gerwarth, R. (eds.) Political Violence in Twentieth-Century Europe. Cambridge University Press, pp. 87-139

Bloxham, D. (2011) Genocides in Comparison. In: Langton, D. and Dreyfus, J. (eds.) Writing the Holocaust. London: Bloomsbury

Bloxham, D. (2011) Introduction. In: Bloxham, D. and Gerwarth, R. (eds.) Political Violence in Europe's Long Twentieth Century. Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-11

Bloxham, D. (2011) The First World War and the Development of the Armenian Genocide. In: Gocek, F., Suny, R. and Naimark, N. (eds.) A Question of Genocide, 1915: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 260-275

Bloxham, D. and Muge Gocek, F. (2010) The Armenian Genocide. In: Stone, D. (ed.) The Historiography of Genocide. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 344-372

Bloxham, D. (2010) Internal Colonisation, Inter-Imperial Conflict and the Armenian Genocide. In: Moses, A. (ed.) Empire, Colony, Genocide: Conquest, Occupation and Subaltern Resistance in World History. Berghahn Books, pp. 325-342

Bloxham, D. (2010) Prosecuting the Past in the Postwar Decade: Political Strategy and National Mythmaking. In: Bankier, D. and Michmann, D. (eds.) Holocaust and Justice: Representation and Historiography of the Holocaust in Post-War Trials. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem

Bloxham, D. (2010) The Politics of Prosecuting Genocidaires. In: O'Pendas, D., Bloxham, D. and Moses, A. (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies. Oxford University Press, pp. 617-35

Bloxham, D. (2009) British War Crimes Policy 1945-1957 between Realpolitik Culture. In: von Lingen, K. (ed.) Kriegserfahrung und nationale Identität in Europa nach 1945: Erinnerung, Säuberungsprozesse und nationales Gedächtnis. Schöningh, pp. 111-130

Bloxham, D. (2009) The Great Unweaving: forced Population Movement in Europe, 1875-1949. In: Bessel, R. and Haake, C. (eds.) Removing Peoples: Forced Removal in the Modern World. Oxford University Press, pp. 167-208

Bloxham, D. (2008) Defeat, Due Process and Denial: War Crimes Trials and nationalist Revisionism in Comparative Perspective. In: Macleod, J. (ed.) Defeat and Memory: Cultural Histories of Military Defeat in the Modern Era. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 117-136

Bloxham, D. (2008) The Organization of Genocide: Perpetration in Comparative Perspective. In: Jensen, O. and Szeinmann, C. (eds.) Ordinary People as Mass Murderers: Perpetrators in Comparative Perspective. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 185-200

Bloxham, D. (2008) Internal colonization, inter-imperial conflict and the Armenian genocide. In: Dirk Moses, A. (ed.) Empire, Colony, Genocide: Conquest, Occupation, and Subaltern Resistance in World History. Berghahn Books, pp. 325-342

Bloxham, D. (2008) Confronting Nazi Atrocities at the End of the War: a Comparative Perspective. In: Riera, M. and Schaffer, G. (eds.) The Lasting War: Society and Identity in Britain, France and Germany after 1945. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 157-172

Bloxham, D. (2008) Jewish Witnesses in War Crimes Trials of the Postwar Era. In: Bankier, D. and Michman, D. (eds.) Holocaust Historiography in Context: Emergence, Challenges, Polemics & Achievement. Jerusalem: Berghahn Books, pp. 539-553

Bloxham, D. (2008) The Historiography of the Armenian Genocide. In: Stone, D. (ed.) The Historiography of Genocide. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 344-72

Bloxham, D. (2006) Genocide on Trial: Law and Collective Memory. In: Safferling, C., Hippel, W. and Reginbogin, H. (eds.) The Nuremberg Trials International Criminal Law Since 1945. K G Saur Verlag Gmbh& Co, pp. 73-85

Bloxham, D. (2006) Changing perceptions of state violence: Turkey's westward development through Anglo-Saxon eyes. In: Soncini, R. (ed.) Miti D'Europa: Myths of Europe. Amsterdam: Rodopi

Bloxham, D. (2006) Großbritannien. In: Frei, N. (ed.) Transnationale Vergangenheitspolitik. Der Umgang mit deutschen Kriegsverbrechen in Europa nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg. Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag

Bloxham, D. (2006) Milestones and Mythologies: the Impact of Nuremberg. In: Heberer, J. (ed.) Atrocities on Trial: The Politics of Prosecuting War Crimes in Historical Perspective. University of Nebraska Press

Bloxham, D. (2005) I processi per crimini di guerra nell' Europa del dopoguerra. In: Guerra ai civili Stragi, violenza e crimini di guerra in Italia e in Europa durante la seconda guerra mondiale: i fatti, le memorie, i processi. Bologna: Il Mulino, pp. 147-76

Bloxham, D. (2005) The Belsen Camp in Historical Context. In: Donald Bloxham, B. (ed.) Remembering Belsen: eye-witnesses record the liberation. Vallentine, Mitchell and Co., pp. 126-39

Bloxham, D. (2004) From Streicher to Sawoniuk: the Holocaust in the Courtroom. In: Stone, D. (ed.) The Historiography of the Holocaust. Palgrave, pp. 397-419

Bloxham, D. (2004) The Holocaust on Trial: crimes against humanity, justice and the writing of the historical record. In: Schaller, D., Boyadjian, R. and Berg, H. (eds.) Enteignet - vertrieben - ermordet. Beiträge zur Genozideforschung. Zurich: Chronos, pp. 295-317

Bloxham, D. (2004) The missing camps of Aktion Reinhard. In: Peter Gray, K. (ed.) The Memory of Catastrophe. Manchester University Press, pp. 118-131

Bloxham, D. (2003) Britain's Holocaust Memorial Days: Reshaping the Past in the Service of the Present. In: Vice, S. (ed.) Representing the Holocaust: Essays in Honour of Bryan Burns. Vallentine, Mitchell and Co., pp. 41-62

Bloxham, D. (2003) Determinants of the Armenian Genocide. In: Hovannisian, R. (ed.) Looking Backward, Moving Forward: Confronting the Armenian Genocide. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, pp. 23-50

Bloxham, D. (2002) A Reassessment of the German Role in the Armenian Genocide of WWI. In: Hans-Lukas Kieser, D. (ed.) Der Volkermord an den Armeniern und die Shoah. Chronos Verlag, pp. 213-44

Bloxham, D. (2002) Power Politics, Prejudice, Protest and Propaganda: a Reassessment of the German Role in the Armenian Genocide of WWI. In: Schaller, H. (ed.) Der Völkermord an den Armeniern und die Shoah. Chronos, pp. 213-44

Bloxham, D. (2002) The Beginning of the Armenian Catastrophe: Contextual and comparative considerations. In: Schaller, H. (ed.) Der Völkermord an den Armeniern und die Shoah. Zurich: Chronos, pp. 101-28

Bloxham, D. (2001) Jewish Slave Labour and its Relationship to the Final Solution. In: Maxwell, J. (ed.) Remembering for the Future: the Holocaust in an Age of Genocide. Macmillan, pp. 163-86

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