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Béla Tomka (* 8 May 1962 in Salgótarján) is a Hungarian historian and a professor at the Department of History, University of Szeged. His main research area is 20th century social and economic history with a special emphasis on international comparisons.

He earned master’s degree in History and History of Eastern Europe at the University of Szeged. He carried out postgraduate studies in economic and social history at the Corvinus University Budapest in the United States (Minneapolis) and in Germany (Münster). He earned the dr. univ. degree in History in 1995, while a year later he received his PhD title in Economic and Social History. In his dissertation, later published as a book, he analyzed the relationship between banks and industry in Hungary at the turn of the 19th and 20th century, based on a wide range of archival sources. At the same time his aim was to reevaluate and elaborate on the arguments developed by R. Hilferding and A. Gerschenkron that have been influencing international economic history for many years. He completed his habilitation (‘venia legendi’) in 2004. In 2010 the Hungarian Academy of Sciences awarded him the Higher Doctorate (DSc) title. In his dissertation he aimed at determining the place of Hungary in the system of 20th century European social and economic convergences and divergences with the systematic empirical analysis of several social and economic fields.

Within the social and economic history of 20th century Hungary and Europe, his research covers changes of family patterns, population studies and the development of social policies. His latest works focus on the comparative history of economic growth and consumption in East Central Europe. His research interest also encompasses the history of violence, propaganda and European integration.

Since 1992 he is co-editor of Aetas, a Quarterly Journal of History and Related Disciplines, while being a member of other editorial boards of academic periodicals as well (Esély,a Journal of Social Policy; The Hungarian Historical Review; Demográfia). In 2016, he was elected as the president of the István Hajnal Society of Social History, and he was re-elected in 2019. In 2010 he was elected as board member of the International Social History Association (ISHA, Amsterdam) and since 2011 he has been editor of the newsletter of this association. He is also an external founding member of the Social and Economic History PhD program at Eötvös University (ELTE, Budapest). He is the founder and head of the Doctoral programme in Contemporary and Comparative History at the University of Szeged (2015). He is the leader of the MTA-SZTE-ELTE History of Globalization Research Group, formed in 2019.

He has been invited by several research institutes and universities in Europe and North-America as research fellow and visiting professor, including Amsterdam, Mannheim, Berlin, Oxford, Edinburgh, Portland (OR) and Jena. He is the author of 16 books and editor of several other volumes, as well as a number of scholarly articles. His major awards include the Bolyai Award for Outstanding Scholarly Contributions (2010) by the Bolyai Foundation Budapest, and the Award of the Academy (for Distinguished Scholarly Achievement) endowed by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 2010. His book published by Routledge in 2013 with the title A Social History of Twentieth-Century Europe won the American Library Association’s “Outstanding Academic Title 2013”. In 2021 he earned the best publication award in the field of social sciences by the University of Szeged.

Selected works

 * Austerities and Aspirations: A Comparative History of Growth, Consumption and Quality of Life in East Central Europe since 1945'', Budapest and New York: Central European University Press, 2020
 * Európa társadalomtörténete a 20. században'' [A Social History of 20th Century Europe], Fully revised second edition, Budapest: Osiris Kiadó, 2020
 * A Social History of Twentieth-Century Europe (London and New York: Routledge, 2013)
 * Gazdasági növekedés, fogyasztás és életminőség: Magyarország nemzetközi összehasonlításban az első világháborútól napjainkig (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 2011) [Economic Growth, Consumption and Quality of Life: Hungary in an International Comparison, 1918 to Present]
 * Welfare in East and West: Hungarian Social Security in an International Comparison, 1918-1990 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2004)
 * Családfejlődés a 20. századi Magyarországon és Nyugat-Európában: konvergencia vagy divergencia? (Budapest: Osiris Kiadó, 2000) [Family Development in Hungary and Western Europe in the 20thCentury: Convergence or Divergence?]

Further information
http://www2.arts.u-szeged.hu/legegyt/oktatok/Tomka_Bela/Tomka_Bela_menu_eng.htm

http://mta.hu/mta_tagjai?PersonId=16647