Teaches various courses in European and American history, including European Fascism, Contemporary Europe, the U.S. since 1945, and courses on film, propaganda, and World War II.

Professor Herzstein has long been interested in the Nazi period and the Holocaust. Among his books in that area are Waldheim: The Missing Years, Roosevelt & Hitler: Prelude to War, The War That Hitler Won, Adolf Hitler and the German Trauma, and The Nazis in the Time-Life World War II series. More recently, he has been researching the work and impact of Henry R. Luce upon American culture and politics: Henry R. Luce: A Political Portrait (1994), deals largely with the pre-and World War II period; Henry R. Luce, Time, and the American Crusade in Asia (Cambridge: fall 2005) analyzes Luce's impact upon American policy towards and perceptions of Communism in East Asia during the Cold War.

Current Activities

I am currently working on a book about the anti-Communist network forged by Alfred Kohlberg, a textile importer active between World War II and 1960. This book will examine Kohlberg's ties to and alliances with the China Lobby, McCarthy, McCarran, William F. Buckley, Jr., the John Birch Society, and various other anti-Communist entities and personalities, both secular and religious. The book will also address Kohlberg's business interests in China, and his alliance with the Guomindang before during and after the Second World War. Part of the book will address the relationship between Alfred and his son Lawrence Kohlberg, the famous educator and moral psychologist.

Robert E. Herzstein