{"id":10311,"date":"2025-09-24T16:54:46","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T14:54:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hias-hamburg.de\/?post_type=fellow&p=10311"},"modified":"2026-04-24T14:08:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T12:08:26","slug":"warren-breckman","status":"publish","type":"fellow","link":"https:\/\/hias-hamburg.de\/en\/fellow\/warren-breckman\/","title":{"rendered":"Warren Breckman"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Project at HIAS<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A Horse Soldier in the Great War<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

During his fellowship at HIAS, Breckman is working on a book tentatively titled A Horse Soldier in the Great War<\/em>. The project weaves together a microhistory of his grandfather, Canadian cavalryman George Hambley, based in Hambley\u2019s wartime diaries, with broader reflections on the culture of the early twentieth century and the complexities of family memory. Spanning 20 volumes written between 1915 and 1920, the diaries chronicle daily life on the Western Front and the postwar occupation of the Rhineland. The diaries are not only an extraordinary and unbroken chronicle of daily experience on the Western Front, including a detailed account of the victors\u2019 occupation of the Rhineland; the diaries include poetry, drawings, philosophical reflections, and spiritual meditations. In brief, they capture the worldview of a late Victorian man on the cusp of twentieth-century modernity, trying to cope with the emotional and intellectual upheavals of the Great War and wrestling with the anachronism of going to the Western Front on horseback. Breckman will endeavor to capture this sensibility and weave it into a narrative that cuts between the time of WWI and our present. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

His Tandem Partner at HIAS is Birthe Kundrus, Professor for Social and Economic History\/ Social History at the University of Hamburg.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Website<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Warren Breckman<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Funding<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The HIAS Fellowship is provided by the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and the federal and state funds acquired by the University of Hamburg in the framework of its Excellence Strategy. <\/h2>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Tandem<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Prof. Dr. Birthe Kundrus<\/a>, Social and Economic History, University of Hamburg<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Biography<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Warren Breckman is the Sheldon and Lucy Hackney Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches modern European intellectual and cultural history. He is the author of Adventures of the Symbolic: Postmarxism and Radical Democracy<\/em> (2013; paperback, 2014), European Romanticism: A Brief History with Documents<\/em> (2008; new edition, 2014), and Marx, the Young Hegelians and the Origins of Radical Social Theory: Dethroning the Self<\/em> (1999; paperback edition, 2001). He co-edited The Cambridge History of Modern European Thought<\/em> (2 vols, 2019; paperback edition, 2021) with Peter E. Gordon. From 2006 to 2016, he served as executive editor of the Journal of the History of Ideas<\/em> and is currently president of JHI, Inc. He was a founding member of the Arbeitskreis of the Zeitschrift f\u00fcr Ideengeschichte<\/em> (2006\u20132023). His previous fellowships include appointments at the American Academy in Berlin (Siemens Fellow, 2013), the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (2004), the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study (2001\u20132002), and the \u00c9cole des Hautes \u00c9tudes en Sciences Sociales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Warren Breckman\u2019s work centers on the history of political thought, with a particular emphasis on the evolution of socialist ideas from the early 19th century to the present. He has written extensively on Karl Marx and his intellectual milieu, as well as on the crisis of Marxism in the 1960s and 1970s and efforts to imagine radical politics beyond the Marxist tradition. His research explores the intersections of politics, religion, and aesthetics.  Additionally, he is interested in how modern leftist thinkers have reengaged early modern philosophical traditions, notably the work of Machiavelli.  Breckman has also had a lifelong interest in the First World War, not only its military history, but its experiential dimensions and vast cultural and social impact as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Breckman’s HIAS Fellowship is provided by the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and the federal and state funds acquired by the University of Hamburg in the framework of its Excellence Strategy.
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Image Information<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Four Canadian soldiers, sleeping and writing letters in the trenches near Willerval. Night time in the trenches was often a busy time; wiring parties, fatigue parties and raiding parties would all be sent out at night. The day time, therefore, was the time for relaxation and trying to catch a little sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Picture. Rider-Rider, W (Lt)<\/a>, Canadian Official photographer<\/a> (04\/01\/1918)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imperial War Museum, Licence Number LIC-02866-J8G3S6<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The First World War 1914-1918: The Western Front, Imperial War Museums.<\/a>
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Events and Lectures (excerpt)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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19\/03\/2026, #Thursday Colloquium: A Horse Soldier in the Great War<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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18\/03\/2026, #HIAS meets: Race, Real Estate, and Resentment in Trump\u2019s America<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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18\/03\/2026, Workshop: The City as Public History: Contested Memory and the Politics of Participation<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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11\/06\/2025, #Thursday Colloquium, A Horse Soldier in the Great War<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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