Biography

I was born in London, England, in 1965. My father, Irving Marder, was an American journalist and author with a (Baltic) Russian background. My mother, nee Weber, was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, with Austrian and Hessian roots. I was raised in Paris (5e arrondissement, near the Val-de-Grace) France and, originally, I had more facility in French and German than in English. During the late seventies, our family moved to California. I undertook my undergraduate studies at Pasadena City College and the University of California at Berkeley, where I graduated with a Bachelor's degree in History. For my graduate studies I returned to Europe, where I studied at the Sorbonne (where my Directeur de Recherches was Guy Pedroncini), Churchill College at the university of Cambridge (where my adviser was Hew Strachan), the University of Poitiers, and the University of Strasbourg (where my Directrice de Recherches was Nicole Pietri), where I received my doctorate in History in 2003.

Teaching

In 2005, I taught American History at Mission College in Santa Clara, California. This Fall (2006), I will be teaching the first section of American History (to 1877) at Foothill College, in Los Altos Hills. In Spring 2007, I will teach a section of Western Civilization (Roman Empire to Medieval Period) at De Anza College in Cupertino. I am also on the adjunct faculty of Cabrillo College, in Aptos.

Philosophy

I believe in Liberty, in Humanity, and in History . My view of History is ambivalent: on the one hand, I have the pious hope that History is more than happenstance, on the other, I am highly doubtful of posivistic analyses that too often trumpet so-called 'lessons of history.' Of one thing, though, I am sure: History is without a doubt the most difficult and challenging of all the academic disciplines, for it combines the ineffable abstractions of philosophy with the quantitative, material exactitude of the sciences and, last and most incalculable of all, it concerns man and society--entities irreducible to accurate reckoning Consequently, my viewpoint is based more on the Sombart-Weber concept of 'Verstehen' as distinguished from the objectifying 'Begreifen' of the (supposedly) scientific approach to History and Sociology that is common.

In practical terms, my approach to teaching history is quite prosaic; sweeping, poetic characterizations I have little time (and probably equally little aptitude) for. I would rather concern myself with more (superficially) banal things, like what people ate, where and how they got their food, et cetera. It strikes me as a bit odd that most students of history will be able to recite a good number of dates and names, but are at rather of a loss when queried about how our ancestors fed, clothed, and housed themselves. The events and people of the past existed within defined, specific material contexts (a moral context, or Zeitgeist may also exist--but it is neither specific nor easily defined--so we will exclude it from discussion) and to evaluate the past without due consideration of this material context reduces history to a caricature. Foremost among these too-often absent historical contexts is money.

To give you an example, I recently visited a very large bookstore to see their collection of works on the United States Civil War. The selection was impressive: there were literally hundreds of different titles, addressing topics as diverse as the sexual life of the soldiers or the technical details of ironclads. But there was not a single book, not a one, on the economic aspects of the Civil War. This lack is as bewildering as it is impardonable, and it is even more unfortunately, also reflected in the contents of our survey texts and our syllabi.

To understand the evolution of a moneyed society--like the US--without specific reference to money is akin to undertaking the understanding of the human circulatory system and all the while leave out any reference to blood. The only time we see money referenced in an American History course--albeit in a most cursory manner that obscures rather than enlightens--are passing allusions to the 1st and 2nd Bank of the US insofar as they impinged on the presidencies of George Washington and Andrew Jackson.

But the economic aspect of history--most obviously, but certainly not exclusively, in the form of capital--is more than an historical epiphenomenon. Money and capital operated in critically important ways in shaping the development of American society and culture, government, foreign policy, and domestic policy.

Another great 'absent' from the normal run of history books and courses is...man, that is, even a rudimentary representation of human psychology. This omission is baffling, for as the stuff of history is the record of past human societies, so these societies were constituted by people, and ultimately an understanding, or even some simplified hypothetical premise, of this most basic component--the individual--is necessary. Here is the simile: if we liken human society to a vast edifice, then people, families, clans, or tribes are the constituent 'bricks' of the building. Historians, observers and 'social architects' who seek to understand the past, present, and future of mankind cannot hope to do so without regard to its fundamental unit: the personality.