Thomas Childers was for­mer­ly the Shel­don and Lucy Hack­ney Pro­fes­sor of His­to­ry at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia and the recip­i­ent of numer­ous fel­low­ships and awards. Childers has held vis­it­ing pro­fes­sor­ships at Trin­i­ty Hall Col­lege, Cam­bridge, Smith Col­lege, and Swarth­more Col­lege, and he has lec­tured in Lon­don, Oxford, Berlin, Munich, and oth­er uni­ver­si­ties in the Unit­ed States and Europe. He is the author or edi­tor of sev­er­al books about mod­ern Ger­man his­to­ry and the Sec­ond World War.