Raymond James Sontag

Raymond James Sontag (1897–1972) was an American historian of European diplomacy of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Life
He was born on October 2, 1897. He received his B.S. and M.A. degrees from the University of Illinois in 1920 and 1921, and his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1924.

He died on October 27, 1972.

Career
He was the Henry Charles Lea Professor of History and then chairman of the history department at Princeton University, 1924-1941. He then moved to the University of California at Berkeley. He was president of the American Catholic Historical Association in 1952. He served as editor in chief for the publication of captured German Foreign Office documents for the U.S. State Department. He was also American editor for “Nazi‐Soviet Relations, 1939–1941.” He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1949.

In A Broken World 1919-1939  (1972) Sontag moves far beyond diplomacy/Versailles/Hitler themes and instead looks at Europe in terms of technology—with caused social tensions—and nationalism, which caused conflict between ethnic groups. In the east authoritarian rulers relied on a violent intense nationalism to gain and maintain power, suppress minorities, and stop reform. Everywhere the non-Communist left found it hard to reconcile nationalism and social progress. There was increasing discontinuity as the escalating crises baffled statesmen.