Jeffrey Burton Russell


Jeffrey Burton Russell is an American historian and religious studies scholar.

Early life

Russell received his undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1955 and his PhD from Emory University in 1960.

Career

He is currently Professor Emeritus of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has also taught History and Religious Studies at Berkeley, Riverside, California State University, Sacramento, Harvard, New Mexico, and Notre Dame.
Russell has published widely, mostly in medieval European history and the history of theology. His first book was Dissent and Reform in the Early Middle Ages. He is most noted for his five-volume history of the concept of the Devil: The Devil, Satan, Lucifer, Mephistopheles and The Prince of Darkness.
In Inventing the Flat Earth he argues that 19th century anti-Christians invented and spread the falsehood that educated people in the Middle Ages believed that the earth was flat. As one writer summarizes, "Russell also examined a large selection of textbooks and found those written before 1870 usually included the correct account, but most textbooks written after 1880 uncritically repeated the erroneous claims in Washington Irving, John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White. Russell concludes that Irving, Draper and White were the main writers responsible for introducing the erroneous flat-earth myth that is still with us today."
Russell has also written two books on the history of the notion of Heaven: A History of Heaven: The Singing Silence, which deals with the period from around 200 B.C. up to Dante, and Paradise Mislaid, which takes the story up to the present day.

Works

The Library of Congress lists 18 books written by Russell:
Articles by Russell include:
Book reviews by Russell include: