Harvey Goldberg was an inspired, passionate teacher who made a permanent impression on thousands of undergraduate and graduate students. He was, indeed, one of the greatest teachers of our time.
President Emeritus, University of Wisconsin–Madison
The Harvey Goldberg Bootleg Lectures
Available now!
Harvey Goldberg began his academic career as an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the early 1940s and stayed on to pursue a Ph.D. in French history. He began his teaching career at Oberlin College and The Ohio State University, but returned to Madison in 1963. At both Columbus and Madison, Goldberg captivated countless thousands of students with his spellbinding and politically powerful lectures. He quickly outgrew the moderately sized lecture hall he had been assigned and moved to the massive auditorium in Wisconsin’s venerable “Ag Hall,” where more than 600 students hung from the rafters in rapt attention. Becoming one of the most popular professors and public figures in Madison, he worked to instill in his students an awareness of the historical struggles by the weakest for justice and to engage the pressing social issues of their day. Goldberg’s teaching profoundly affected the lives of a student generation, and though he passed away in 1987, his legacy lives on today in the work of his former students.
Harvey Goldberg’s lectures were meticulously crafted performances. In these lectures delivered mainly to his famed “Contemporary Societies” class, Goldberg applied the lessons of history to analysis of the contemporary world, ranging from Europe, across North Africa, to Asia and America. While they were based on the extensive research many scholars reserve for their published work, Professor Goldberg delivered them with an actor’s sense of timing and emphasis. He dramatically drew lessons about courage and commitment, risk and responsibility, and the role of individuals in creating social change. For his students, Goldberg’s teaching would prove to be a transformative experience.
Some of the lectures were recorded on bootleg tapes, spanning the years from 1970 to 1976. The Harvey Goldberg Center of the Study of Contemporary History at UW–Madison is proud to make these lectures available, to preserve these important primary documents in the crucial years of Madison’s student movement, and to preserve this part of his scholarly legacy.
The Goldberg Center is accepting requests for financial assistance with lectures, conferences, seminars, and symposia for the 2023-2024 academic year. Please direct your requests to Goldberg Center chair, Patrick Iber.
Harvey Goldberg’s Scholarship
The Life of Jean Jaurès. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1962.
