'Robert Aldrich is Professor of European History and Chair of the Department of History at the University of Sydney. He holds a BA degree from Emory University, and MA and PhD degrees from Brandeis University, and has taught in Sydney since 1981. He specialises in modern European history (especially the history of France), the history of imperialism and colonialism, the history of sexuality, and the portrayal of historical themes in monuments, museums and commemorations. He is has worked on a study of regionalism, nationalism and imperialism in nineteenth and twentieth-century France, and a commissioned work on Gay Lives in World History. He is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and has been decorated with the French Ordre des Palmes Académiques.' (Source: The Australian Academy of the Humanities website)