Kenneth Marcus is Professor of History at the University of La Verne, where he teaches courses in European and American history, world history, and approaches to history. He specializes in the field of American cultural history and has published 3 books: Schoenberg and Hollywood Modernism (Cambridge University Press, hardback 2016, paperback 2018); Musical Metropolis: Los Angeles and the Creation of a Music Culture, 1880-1940 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004); and Politics of Power: Elites of an Early Modern State in Germany, Institute for European History Series, vol. 177 (Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 2000). He has published over 60 articles, encyclopedia entries, book reviews and recordings. He is a musician (piano, guitar, vocals) and has composed for, performed on, and/or co-produced several albums for use in the classroom, including Some American Music (1999), Music of California and the West by the Arias Troubadours (2007), and most recently Songs to Study By (2019).
He earned his B.A. in history at the University of California, Berkeley; an M.B.A. from the ESCP Europe Business School in Paris, France, and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Cambridge, UK. He held the Senior Professorship in American Culture at Leiden University in 2013 and is past president of the Historical Society of Southern California.