Distinguished historian to present Curti lectures

The 25th annual Merle Curti Lectures will be presented by distinguished historian John Lukacs in the auditorium of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin Oct. 23-25 at 4 p.m. each day.

The free public lectures are sponsored by the History Department.

The lecture theme is “The Way We Live Now (The Profession of History)” and their individual titles are “Our Troubles” (Monday, Oct. 23), “Causality, Actuality, Potentiality” (Tuesday, Oct. 24), and “History and Literature” (Wednesday, Oct. 25). A reception will follow the first lecture Monday, Oct. 23.

Born in Hungary in 1924, Lukacs came to the United States in 1946 after studying at Cambridge and Budapest Universities. He taught from 1947-1993 at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia and has been visiting professor at Columbia, Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins, Princeton and other universities, including several in France and Hungary.

Lukacs has received many scholarly awards and honors. He is the author of 19 books — primarily on modern European cultural and political history, but also on American history — and of about 400 articles and reviews.

Some of his best-known works include “The Great Powers and Modern Europe,” “A New History of the Cold War, Historical Consciousness,” “The Passing of the Modern Age,” “The Last European War, 1939-1941,” “Outgrowing Democracy: A History of the United States in the Twentieth Century,” “Budapest 1900,” “The Duel: The Eighty-Day Struggle Between Churchill and Hitler, 10 May-31 July 1940,” “The End of the Twentieth-Century (and the End of the Modern Age),” “George F. Kennan and the Origins of Containment,” and “The Hitler of History.”

His books have been translated into 15 languages.