University of Pittsburgh-Johnstown

Robert W Matson, PhD

  • Professor of History

Courses Offered

European and International:

Renaissance & Reformation
Modern Britain
Mexico
Europe, 1914-1945
Europe, 1945-the present

History of Religion/Religious Studies:

Religions of the World
Judaism Christianity, and Islam
Origins of Christianity
The Bible: Archaeology and History

Education & Training

  • B.A. California State University, Fresno
  • M.A. San Diego State University
  • Further Graduate Study: University of Portland
  • Ph.D. (1981) University of Oregon

Representative Publications

Books:

       Neutrality and Navicerts: Britain, the United States and Economic Warfare, 1939-40. New York: Garland Publishing, 1994

       William Mulholland: A Forgotten Forefather. Holt-Atherton Center for Western Historical Studies, University of the Pacific, 1976

Edited Works:

       Using Visual Evidence, with Richard Howells, Open University/McGraw-Hill, 2009.

       Film & History, special issues on World War II, vol. 27, nos. 1-4 (1997).

       Arctic Twilight: Old Finnish Tales, trans. by Allen M. Pitkänen. Portland: Finnish-American Literary Heritage Foundation, 1982

Articles and book chapters:

“Images and Imaginations: Mid-Nineteenth Century Travelers in Cuba,” International Journal of Humanities and Social Science (December 2011), 121-28.

“An Autobiographical Allegory: Franco Zeffirelli’s Tea With Mussolini in Michael Paris, ed., Re-Picturing the War: Representations of the Second World War in Film and Television since 1989 (Palgrave, 2008), 39-54.

       "Finlandization: A Retrospective," in T. Michael Ruddy, ed. Charting an Independent Course: Finland's Place in the Cold War and in U.S. Foreign Policy (Regina Books: 1998), pp. 197-213.

       "The British Navy and U.S. Trade, 1939-40," The Historian 53 (Summer 1991):743-64.

       "Joseph Wood Hill: 'Civilian Soldier' in Education and Politics," Oregon Historical Quarterly 90 (Spring 1989):5-38.

       "Finlandization: An Ahistorical Analogy," Washington State Research Studies 51 (March 1983):1-11.

       "Church Wealth in Nineteenth Century Mexico: A Review of Literature," Catholic Historical Review 65 (October 1979):600-09.

       "Maya Hieroglyphics: More Challenging than Egyptian," University of Portland Review 30 (Fall 1978):3-13.

Division

Academic Programs