Richard J. Evans, historian with a focus on Germany
Richard J. Evans (born 1947) is a historian of modern Germany whose extensive body of work transitioned from early studies of feminism and middle-class culture to pioneering a "history from below" that emphasizes the grassroots experiences of ordinary people . Rejecting both the "great man" theory and the "top-down" methodology of the Bielefeld School, Evans utilized the influence of the Annales school to explore how social inequalities and structural failures—such as those seen in the Hamburg cholera epidemic or the history of capital punishment —served as reflections of state power and precursors to National Socialism. Throughout his career, he has been a vocal opponent of historical revisionism, famously challenging apologist accounts of the Third Reich during the Historikerstreit and defending the objective reconstruction of the past against the skepticism of postmodernist theory.