Lewis H. Siegelbaum (born 1949 is an American historian and academic specializing in the history of the Soviet Union.
Biography Lewis Siegelbaum was born in New York to a secular Jewish family.Людмила Новикова, Записки очарованного ЛЮДМИЛА НОВИКОВА О ВОСПОМИНАНИЯХ ЛЬЮИСА Г. СИГЕЛЬБАУМА, book review According to his own account, his academic interests were influenced by the political views of his father, who had been a member of the Communist Party of the USA since 1939. As a student of Columbia University, Lewis Siegelbaum took part in protests against the Vietnam War (he later denounced the naivete of the student rebels).
He received his doctorate from the University of Oxford under the supervision of Harold Shukman in 1975 for a thesis on the history of the , an industrialist-dominated organization which tried to coordinate Russian industry during World War I. He taught at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, from 1975, before receiving an appointment at Michigan State University in 1983. He held the Jack and Margaret Sweet Professor of History endowed chair there until his retirement in 2018.Lewis Siegelbaum, profile @ MSU websiteABBREVIATED CURRICULUM VITAE OF LEWIS H. SIEGELBAUM (archived)
Books 1983: The Politics of Industrial Mobilization in Russia, 1914–1917: A Study of the War-Industries Committees (St. Martin's Press) (book review in: The American Historical Review, vol. 89, issue 5, December 1984, p. 1360, ) 1988: Stakhanovism and the Politics of Productivity in the USSR, 1935–1941 (Cambridge University Press) 1992: Soviet State and Society Between Revolutions, 1918–1929 (Cambridge University Press) 1995: Workers of the Donbass Speak: Survival and Identity in the New Ukraine, 1989–1992 (with Daniel J. Walkowitz), SUNY Press, 1995 2000: Stalinism as a Way of Life: A Documentary Narrative (with ), Yale University Press In his book review, Richard Pipes criticized Siegelbaum's interpretation of the presented primary sources: "He seems to have difficulty accepting the texts at their face value, and feels compelled to interpret them in sociological jargon that robs them of their force and dilutes their message."<...>"There is a reluctance in Siegelbaum's discussion to concede the totalitarian nature of the Stalinist regime." 2008: Cars for Comrades: The Life of the Soviet Automobile (Cornell) from a prize citation: "This may well be the perfect subject for an historian of the Soviet Union who teaches in Michigan. Engagingly written with considerable wit and close attention to evidentiary detail, Cars for Comrades successfully combines technological, institutional, economic, social, and cultural history. Siegelbaum uses the automobile to shed considerable light on multiple facets of the Soviet experience, including urbanization, consumption, economic relations with the West, and the culture of everyday life. The book will enlighten and entertain specialists and students alike. "CITATIONS FOR PAST WINNERS OF THE REGINALD ZELNIK BOOK PRIZE 2014: Broad Is My Native Land: Repertoires and Regimes of Migration in Russia's Twentieth Century (with Leslie Page Moch)Online version: 2019: Stuck on Communism: Memoir of a Russian Historian (Northern Illinois University Press) 2020: (Russian translation) Не расстанусь с коммунизмом. Мемуары американского историка России, 2023: Making National Diasporas: Soviet Migration Regimes and Post-Soviet Consequences (Cambridge University Press, 2023) co-authored with Leslie Page Moch for the series Elements in Soviet and Post-Soviet History 2024: Reflections on Stalinism (Northern Illinois University Press, 2024) co-edited with J. Arch Getty
Awards Cars for Comrades earned two prizes from the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies: 1989: Ed A. Hewett Book PrizePAST WINNERS OF THE ED A HEWETT BOOK PRIZE 1989: Honorable mention of the Reginald Zelnik Book Prize in HistoryPAST WINNERS OF THE REGINALD ZELNIK BOOK PRIZE IN HISTORY 2006: MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching) Award for Exemplary Online Learning Resources, in History category, for the online resource "Seventeen Moments in Soviet History" (shared with James von Geldern)MERLOT Awards: Exemplary Classics 2024: Distinguished Contributions to Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies Award by ASEEES (Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies)
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References
Further reading Saving Seventeen Moments in Soviet History. An Interview with Lewis Siegelbaum and James von Geldern, by Amy Nelson, Virginia Tech, NewsNet. News of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, vol. 56, no.1, 2016, pp. 20–23
New Books Network: New Books in Russian and Eurasian Studies, interview with Alisa Kuzmina, November 16, 2024 at https://newbooksnetwork.com/reflections-on-stalinism