Modris Eksteins facts for kids
Modris Eksteins (born December 13, 1943) is a Latvian Canadian historian. He is especially interested in German history and modern culture.
Modris Eksteins was born in Riga, Latvia. As a child, he moved to Canada with his family. His father was a Baptist minister. They first settled in Winnipeg and then in Toronto. Modris went to Upper Canada College on a scholarship. He then studied at the University of Toronto's Trinity College, earning his first degree in 1965. He also studied in Germany at Heidelberg University in 1963.
Later, he attended Oxford University in England as a Rhodes Scholar. He earned two more degrees there, a BPhil in 1967 and a DPhil in 1970. In 1970, he joined the University of Toronto Scarborough as a professor of history. He taught there until he retired in 2010.
Modris Eksteins' Books
Modris Eksteins has written several important books. His books often explore how history and culture connect. Many of his works have been translated into different languages around the world.
- Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age (1989)
- This book looks at World War I and how it changed the world. It won the Wallace K. Ferguson Prize and the Trillium Book Award.
- Walking Since Daybreak: A Story of Eastern Europe, World War II and the Heart of Our Century (1999)
- This book combines the history of World War II in Latvia with his own family's story. It won the Pearson Writers' Trust Non-Fiction Prize.
- Solar Dance: Genius, Forgery, and the Eclipse of Certainty (2012)
- This book explores the life of the famous painter Vincent van Gogh. It also talks about a man named Otto Wacker who made fake Van Gogh paintings. This book won the British Columbia National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction in 2013.
Other books he has written or helped write include:
- Theodor Heuss und die Weimarer Republik (1969)
- The Limits of Reason: The German Democratic Press and the Collapse of Weimar Democracy (1975)
- Nineteenth-Century Germany (1983)
- Diaghilev Was Here (2005)
