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Rating: 
Summary: Professor Mosse's gift
Review: Bravo! Anyone who was ever a student or admirer of George Mosse will love this book. It is a wonderful, historical chronicle of Professor Mosse's family, his life and his career that is written as if he had spoken it. For someone who lived such a long, interesting life, this autobiography is rather short. (200 pages or so.) What this means, is that the reader gets a great overview of all the different phases of Professor Mosse's life, without having to read through long, tedious chapters about things that aren't that compelling. Furthermore, he treats the various angles of his life with equal merit. He writes about the Germany of his youth, his schooling, his family, exile, college, grad school and then life as a historian. With equal weight, he also writes about his status as an outsider, both as a Jew and a homosexual. His discussion of his homosexuality is probably groundbreaking in the sense that he is so adept at placing his feelings and actions in a historical context. "Confronting History" brought Professor Mosse back to life for me. I could hear him talking, laughing, and pondering the various choices he made. He was someone who was refreshingly humble, and his lack of pomposity comes shining through in this great final gift he left for all of the many, many people who knew him and loved him.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable
Review: I enjoyed reading this book and am sure will re-read it later on as I grow older. I admire his resolve to overcome adversaries. The book followed his distinguished professional career well, but I do long more for the personal side of his life. I want to know whethter his sexuality influenced his research and career, what the life was like growing up in a 'male' German culture, etc. I do hope there will be a more complete biography of him in he future that covers all aspects of his life.
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