Harold James (historian)

In 2004 the German Historical Institute in Washington, D.C., awarded him the Helmut Schmidt Prize in Economic History.

[2] He serves on the editorial committee of the journal World Politics and is chairman of the Academic Council of eabh (European Association for Banking and Financial History).

James is married to Marzenna Kowalik (1964 – ), a political scientist who specialises in Polish-Soviet economic relations who also teaches at Princeton.

Among his major contributions to the field are a detailed study of Deutsche Bank, an examination of the role of the Reichsbank in seizing Jewish financial assets during the Nazi era, and a reappraisal of the peculiar nature of the German national identity.

He examines the contemporary issues associated with globalisation in the context of larger economic trends, which were disrupted by the World Wars and the Great Depression.