Ernest Benz specializes in social history, notably the onset of family limitation. Related topics include migration, marriage, mortality, illegitimacy, inheritance, occupation, landholding, industrialization and women's work. He is currently researching the family histories of rural and urban Jews in Baden from 1800 until the Holocaust. His other interests include the revolution of 1848 at the local level and struggles between state and church (but he is willing to listen to and discuss almost any subject).

His teaching repertoire includes an introduction to world history since 1000, three sequential surveys together covering Europe since 1600, focused courses on the French Revolution and the Holocaust, a cooperative project in grass-roots social history, advanced colloquia in modern intellectual history and occasionally a seminar on the history of fertility control. He also assists with the basis for East Asian studies.

Selected Publications

Fertility, Wealth, and Politics in Three Southwest German Villages 1650–1900. Humanities Press, 1999.