Thomas Childers was formerly the Sheldon and Lucy Hackney Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania and the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards. Childers has held visiting professorships at Trinity Hall College, Cambridge, Smith College, and Swarthmore College, and he has lectured in London, Oxford, Berlin, Munich, and other universities in the United States and Europe. He is the author or editor of several books about modern German history and the Second World War.