Degrees

Ph.D., Harvard University (1998)
M.Sc. London School of Economics (1987) 
A.B., Brown University (1985)  
A.M. (honorary), Amherst College (2012)

Research Interests

Professor Epstein focuses her scholarship, as well as her teaching, on topics within modern German and Central European history.  She is the author of four books and numerous articles and book chapters.  For a decade (2004–2014), Professor Epstein served as associate editor of Central European History, the leading journal in German history in North America.  She currently is a member of the Board of Directors of the American Friends of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and of the Academic Committee of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.  Professor Epstein is on sabbatical for the 2024–2025 academic year and has started work on a project on a global history of reparations.

Books by Professor Epstein

• Nazi Germany: Confronting the Myths provides a concise and compelling introduction to the Third Reich. At the same time, it challenges and demystifies the many stereotypes surrounding Hitler and Nazi Germany.  Please change the link, as the current one doesn’t work.  Here is the correct link: https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Nazi+Germany%3A+Confronting+the+Myths-p-9781118294789

• Model Nazi: Arthur Greiser and the Occupation of Western Poland is the biography of Arthur Greiser, the man who initiated the “Final Solution” in Nazi-occupied Poland. Beginning with his early years prior to the First World War, it charts his rise to Nazi prominence in Danzig and his years as the Nazi territorial leader of the Warthegau, to his trial and execution in post-war Poland.

• The Last Revolutionaries: German Communists and Their Century tells a story of unwavering political devotion: it follows the lives of German communists across the tumultuous twentieth century. 

• A Past Renewed: A Catalog of German-Speaking Refugee Historians in the United States after 1933 portrays the generation of German-speaking refugee historians who settled in the United States after fleeing Hitler’s Europe.

Teaching Interests

Since joining the Amherst faculty in 2000, Professor Epstein has taught a wide range of courses, including classes on the Holocaust, Nazi Germany, and World War II.  From 2014 to 2024, she served as Amherst’s dean of the faculty, and then as provost and dean of the faculty, during which time she did not teach.  Professor Epstein looks forward to returning to the Amherst classroom in fall 2025.

Service as Amherst’s Provost and Dean of the Faculty

As provost and dean, Professor Epstein hired 44 percent of the current Amherst faculty and diversified its ranks significantly.  In support of the faculty, she created new leadership programs, enhanced support for research, and launched a compensation program for the chairs of academic departments and programs, as well as a new phased retirement program.  Professor Epstein also established several new centers at the college, including the Center for Teaching and Learning, the Center for Humanistic Inquiry, and the Center for Strategic Learning.  Under her leadership, Amherst undertook many initiatives to enhance students’ academic experiences, including creating new majors, programs and departments; increasing opportunities for faculty-student research; creating a program of course-related travel; and establishing or expanding cohort learning experiences such as the Schupf Fellows Program and—for first-generation and low-income students—the STEM Incubator, Summer Bridge, and Meiklejohn Fellows Programs.  In the provost role, Professor Epstein oversaw a broad range of offices that advance the academic mission of the college, including athletics, the Loeb Center for Career Exploration and Planning, the Offices of Sustainability and Global Education, the Center for Community Engagement, and the college’s museums and library.  

Learn more about Professor Epstein’s accomplishments as provost and dean, and view some of her speeches.