Anson Rabinbach was a specialist in modern European history with an emphasis on intellectual and cultural history. He published extensive works on Nazi Germany, Austria and European thought in the nineteenth and twentieth century. In 1974, he co-founded the premier journal of German studies in the United States, New German Critique. In 1979, he published The Crisis of Austrian Socialism: From Red Vienna to Civil War 1927-1934, a study of Austrian culture and politics during the interwar period. The Human Motor, an investigation of the metaphor of work and energy that provided modern thinkers with a new scientific and cultural framework to understand the human body, appeared in 1991 and has since been translated into several languages. Known for his scholarly research on the culture of Nazi Germany and on post-World War II exchanges between European and American intellectuals, Rabinbach also wrote reviews for the New York Times, Times Literary Supplement, Dissent, and The Nation. A recipient of the Viktor Adler State Prize in 1987, Rabinbach also received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, ACLS, and the NEH.