World & US History

  Early life Hajo Holborn was born   the son of Ludwig Holborn, the German physicist and "Direktor der Physikalisch-Technischen Reichsanstalt," and became a student of  Friedrich Meinecke  at Berlin University, where he achieved a doctor of philosophy in 1924. After establishing at Heidelberg in 1926 as lecturer in medieval and modern history, he became Privatdozent there until he was called back to Berlin as Carnegie Professor of History and International Relationships at the private Deutsche Hochschule für Politik. He was dismissed from his appointments in 1933 by the Nazi government, but he had already left the country. Emigration Unwilling to participate in National Socialism, that same year he fled to the United Kingdom, then emigrated to the United States in 1934. Shortly after coming to America, he was appointed visiting professor of German history at Yale. He taught Diplomatic History at Tufts University, Massachusetts, (1936–1942) and was a guest...

  Last year marked the  centenary of the birth, in Groningen in 1872, of the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga. To justify this commemoration of an international scholar by a non-historian, I might join J. Kamerbeek, jr., Professor of Comparative Literature at Amsterdam University, in quoting the words of another non-historian, Paul Hazard: “L’histoire est une tentation pour l’historien de la littérature.” Yet Kamerbeek had less reason to explain his fascination with history than I have, for literary studies in the Netherlands have always been very closely associated with the study of history. This now is not the case in the Belgian university system. My apparent rashness, then, is prompted by my interest in the times that shaped Huizinga’s historical and other views and by the fact — which actually annuls the remarks made by Kamerbeek and Hazard — that it is far from certain that Huizinga was strictly a historian in the accepted sense of the word. Is he not something more, ...

  Author and historian David McCullough passed away August 7 th   at the age of 89.   Known for his histories and biographies, McCullough shaped the popular understanding of the American past, and his impact on US history will not soon be forgotten. Born July 7, 1933 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, David McCullough had many interests as a child, from learning history to playing sports to drawing cartoons.  McCullough eventually settled upon English, which he studied at Yale University alongside novelist and playwright Thornton Wilder.  He graduated in 1955 with a bachelor’s degree in English and the intention of becoming a fiction writer or a playwright.  But the world, it seemed, had other plans. After a series of jobs in journalism, McCullough stumbled upon an intriguing (and little researched) historical event: the catastrophic Johnstown Flood.  His part-time research into this natural disaster eventually grew into McCullough’s first — and much l...

  François Marie Arouet, also known as Voltaire, was a writer, historian, and philosopher, and almost certainly the most important figure of the French Enlightenment. The impact of this French author and philosopher on Western thought was so profound that he is simply known as “Voltaire”—the name he adopted in 1718. With a philosophy based on both skepticism and rationalism, on both tolerance and scientific curiosity, he intellectually straddled the France of his birth—a superstitious, class-​bound society under the absolute monarchy of Louis XIV—and the France of his death—a society on the brink of demanding “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” through revolution. His plays lampooning society and his nonfiction works on history, politics, religion, and philosophy made him the best-​known intellectual of his day, with such prominent admirers and correspondents as Catherine the Great of Russia and Frederick the Great of Prussia. The Enlightenment is sometimes referred to ...

  Born in Boston in 1663, Cotton Mather was the son of Increase Mather and the grandson of Richard Mather and John Cotton. This legacy of famous Puritan ministers and community leaders shaped Mather’s life and was the driving force behind many of his achievements. Encouraged in his early education and dedication to Puritanism by his father, he entered Harvard at age 12 and graduated with a BA and MA in 1678 at the age of 15. Ordained in 1685, he became the pastor of Second Church of Boston where he remained until his death. Often viewed as an aggressive, vain genius by his contemporaries, he had a stutter from childhood to early adulthood and suffered from various nervous conditions in his life. He lost three wives to death or insanity in his lifetime, and of the fifteen children he fathered only two survived to his death. Despite tragedies and controversy, he published over 400 works in his lifetime and is today seen as one of the most influential religious and historical wr...

  This interview is included in the Indiana University Folklore Institute, 1987 Collection at the Indiana University Center for the Study of History and Memory. In this interview, Henry Glassie speaks of his early life and early exposure to folklore which led to a passion for and a life-long goal of working in the field. He talks about college experiences, getting into the field and working his way up, and people that influenced him. Glassie talks a great deal about Richard Dorson, their relationship, and Dorson's relationships others, as well as his personality, his guidance, his ideology of folklore and changes he went through. Glassie discusses the time he began to study at Indiana University, what the students did, what they believed, and what changes occurred. This collection is part of the Indiana University Folklore Institute, 1987 collection which is available at the Indiana University Center for the Study of History and Memory. It consists of: 115 pages, 5 tapes (1 ...