Jack R. Pole

Jack Richon Pole (born March 14, 1922 in London , † January 30, 2010 ) was a British historian .

biography

Origin, studies and teaching activities

Pole came from a Jewish family who immigrated to Great Britain from the Ukraine and initially settled in Glasgow . His father, Joe Pole, was arrested for conscientious objection during World War I and later worked as a journalist and public relations director for United Artists in London . Poles mother Phoebe Richards was also of Jewish descent from an entrepreneurial family, was involved as a suffragette and was arrested for participating in campaigns to promote women's suffrage in Hyde Park . She later became a member of the Finchley City Council as a representative of the Labor Party and as such criticized the work of the then MP of the House of Commons , Margaret Thatcher, even in old age . Nonetheless, after his mother's death, Pole received a handwritten condolence letter from Thatcher, who was already Prime Minister at the time .

The family's radical left-wing political background led to a lifelong loathing of Poles for social inequality and racial discrimination . In the 1960s he took part in demonstrations for the rights of immigrants from the Commonwealth of Nations in Great Britain and also supported the civil rights movement in the USA.

He started school at the age of four and was initially a student at the Malting House School in Cambridge , which was founded by the educator Geoffrey Pyke. He later moved to the King Alfred School in Hampstead (London) . After finishing school, he joined the British Army and served as a soldier in anti - aircraft batteries in Scapa Flow , Somaliland and on the south coast of England from 1939 to 1945 during World War II .

After the war he began in 1946 to study history at Queen's College of Oxford University . During this time, he specialized in the history of the United States and began in 1949 his promotion to Doctor of Philosophy ( Ph.D. ) at the Princeton University in New Jersey , which was unusual at that time, but ultimately shaped his career significantly. During this time he also met the leading historians in the United States and their works. Together with the later recognized historian Gerald Aylmer , he undertook an extensive research trip through the USA.

After completing his doctorate, he was from 1952 to 1953 with a teaching position as a lecturer at Princeton University working and took a job as a lecturer also in 1953 after his return to the UK at the University College London . Ten years later he was appointed professor at Cambridge University , where he taught history and government of America. At the same time, as a fellow, he was also a visiting lecturer at Churchill College , which was founded in 1958 and later became its vice-rector (Vice-Master). In 1978 he became a professor at the Chair of American History at Oxford University , endowed by the Rhodes Foundation , and again between 1979 and 1989 as a fellow lecturer at St Catherine's College (Oxford) at the university.

At both Cambridge and Oxford, he gave the American History course a new make-up by redesigning the curriculum and changing focus areas. Last year, the Basal studies ( undergraduate ), the previous topic "was slavery and secession " that the American Civil War saw as a conflict between whites changed to "slavery and emancipation " that a focus on the problems of colored African put immigrants.

While teaching at Cambridge and Oxford, he also promoted the exchange of visiting scholars and, in particular, worked closely with Richard Hofstadter , DeWitt Clinton Professor of American History at Columbia University .

Importance and publications

Professor Jack Pole was the greatest British historian and expert on the United States of his generation, and his specialist books and articles earned him praise and recognition from the most important US historians. Although he was an expert on the American Revolution in particular, he wrote on all periods, linking the history of the United States with the history of England in the 17th and 18th centuries .

His first publications included a paper on US President Abraham Lincoln , published in 1965 on the 100th anniversary of the President's assassination during the Civil War .

He has also published a number of works on the colonial beginnings of the American Revolution , the United States' Declaration of Independence, and the consultation and ratification of the United States Constitution .

His most significant book was "Political Representation in England and the Origins of the American Republic" (1966), which has been recognized in book reviews by leading historians such as Bernard Bailyn and Gordon Wood. Poles book examined in particular the development of political representation in the key colonies of Massachusetts , Pennsylvania and Virginia and connected this with the development of that time in England in the 1770s and the effects on developments after the Declaration of Independence. In addition, it combined constitutional history , constitutional theory and the history of political thought, so that the book quickly became a classic.

His textbook "Foundations of American Independence 1763-1815", published in 1973, became a standard work on US history at the time. He set high standards for his publications and therefore viewed popular scientific treatment of the subject of the history of the United States, such as the television and radio programs of Alistair Cooke, critical.

The study "The Pursuit of Equality in American History" published in 1978 was of a similar importance to "Political Representation in England and the Origins of the American Republic". In it, he examined various types of political, civic, racial, social, and economic equality in U.S. history and placed them above workers at the New Deal time in the 1930s through the experiences of various groups such as slaves or radical trade unionists in the 19th century up to the feminists of the 1970s.

For his services he was elected a member (Fellow) of the British Academy in 1985.

Web links

• THE TIMES: "Professor Jack Pole: historian of the US" (February 18, 2010)