Dr James Mark
Senior Lecturer in History
M.Phil. D.Phil. (Oxon)
Extension: 4295
Telephone: 01392 724295
Most of my research addresses either the social and cultural history of Communism in central-eastern Europe (with a focus on Hungary) or the politics of memory in the region during both Communism and post-Communism. I have been involved in projects on the history of the middle class in early Communist Hungary, the impact of World War II in rural communities in Transylvania, Romania, and on political and cultural radicals in 1960s and 1970s Hungary. Recently I have published on the way in which history gets recast at moments of profound political change, addressing the ways in which political elites, cultural institutions, institutes of memory, and ordinary people have contributed to the re-imagining of the past after the fall of Communism in eastern Europe after 1989. I am currently contributing to a collectively written monograph on activism across Europe in the 1960s and 1970s, and writing (with Dr. Péter Apor) a work on transnationalism and activism in late socialist Hungary.
For information on my new book, 'The Unfinished Revolution: Making Sense of the Communist Past in central-eastern Europe', see yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp It has been shortlisted for the 2011 Longman History Today Book Prize, and chosen as one of the 'best books of 2011' by Foreign Affairs.
To hear me discuss the book on BBC Radio 4, click:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b011jv8c (about half way through the programme)
