Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Sic Transit Eugen Weber

"No WUNdah the RRRomans ate PahStah in thee sisTAINE chapel." The queer cadences of the Hungarian Born, Paris Educated professor of European History are familiar to students everywhere. THE WESTERN TRADITION is the primer for all students of History and Eugen Weber is the voice, face, and incredibly sopoforic master of the PBS lecture series. For me, he filled in the gaps of the basic European history texts of my High School career.

He may not be too important to too many people, but he and his series help cement my love for History and in a wider sense my love of knowledge. His Death at the age of 84 last week would have gone by unnoticed by me had not my closest friend alerted me of his passing today. I was planning on being clever and making fun of Eugen for his accent and sideburns, but truth be told, since this may be one of the few random Eugen Eulogies on the web, I'll leave the prof alone, and allow him to do the lecturing.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You got a few things wrong: Weber was born in Romania and educated in England. He died at age 82 in Los Angeles. I met him several times and attended a number of his lectures, which were anything but lulling and full of hysterically funny comments. The man was perhaps the greatest wit I've ever come across.

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