Book by History Professor Thomas Childers Coming to a Television Set Near You
The most recent book by Thomas Childers, the Sheldon and Lucy Hackney Professor of History, has been made into a program airing this month on the History Channel. Childers’ 2003 effort, In the Shadows of War: An American Pilot’s Odyssey Through Occupied France and the Camps of Nazi Germany was adapted for the two-hour docudrama “Shot From the Sky” set to air during prime time on Sunday, Dec. 19.
Drawn from extensive interviews, letters and archival documents in Britain, France, Germany and the United States, the book tells three interrelated stories of World War II. From Resistance activities in rural France, to Paris and captivity by the Gestapo, to the Buchenwald concentration camp, it is a story of ordinary people who did not make policy or formulate strategy but whose lives were profoundly altered by war.
The television production will include a mix of actors and on-camera interviews including Childers and assistant professor of history Kristin Stromberg Childers. To check for more air dates and times, go to www.historychannel.com.
Childers was born and raised in East Tennessee. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Tennessee, and earned his Ph.D. in History from Harvard University in 1976. Since 1976, he has taught in the Department of History at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including a Fulbright scholarship, the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung Research Grant, a fellowship in European Studies from the American Council of Learned Societies, and a West European Studies Research Grant from Harvard University.