Raymond Jonas

I am a free-range historian of the long nineteenth century (1789-1918). My work explores episodes and themes that connect Europe, Africa, and the Americas.

My most recent book, Habsburgs on the Rio Grande: The Rise and Fall of the Second Mexican Empire (Harvard) shows how European and Mexican fears of American empire culminated in an attempt to establish a European monarchy on Mexican soil.

The Battle of Adwa: African Victory in the Age of Empire (Harvard) tells the unique story of successful African resistance to colonization. The book narrates this signal event in global history and follows the Adwa story as it rolls through African and European diasporic communities. The Battle of Adwa represents the culmination of ten years of research on three continents – Africa, Europe and the Americas. A companion web site BattleOfAdwa.org augments and extends this work.

Earlier work elaborates the political culture of counter-revolution, notably in art, architecture, and ritual. France and the Cult of the Sacred Heart: an Epic Tale for Modern Times (California) focuses on the basilica of Sacré-Coeur, on Montmartre, in Paris. It situates the basilica within the cold civil war that simmered for over a century after the Revolution of 1789. The book lays out the elements of a fierce struggle between advocates of a Christian national ideal and defenders of a pluralist vision of the nation.

The Tragic Tale of Claire Ferchaud and the Great War (California) adopts the biographical form to follow an unusual personality as she navigates the boundary between divine inspiration and hysteria. Le Sacré-Cœur; histoire d'une dévotion du XVIe au XXe siècle (Geste, 2004) developed these themes for a francophone audience.

Industry and Politics in Rural France, 1870-1914 (Cornell) subverts the conventional story of the making of the European working class by focusing on unconventional members of it.