Michael Kammen

Michael Gedaliah Kammen (born October 25, 1936 in Rochester , New York , † November 29, 2013 in Ithaca , New York) was an American historian and professor at Cornell University . He dealt with early American history and American cultural history.

Kammen grew up in the Washington, DC area and studied at George Washington University and Harvard University , where he received his doctorate in 1964 with Bernard Bailyn . He then taught at Cornell University, first from 1965 as Assistant Professor and finally as Newton C. Farr Professor of American History and Culture . In 2008 he retired. In 1980/81 he was visiting professor of American history at the École des Hautes Etudes in Paris .

At first he dealt with American colonial history, later also with American cultural history in general in the 19th and 20th centuries. For his book People of Paradox , in which he investigated contradictions in the American national character, such as those between idealism and materialism or puritanism and hedonism , he received the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for history and for A machine that would go of itself on the American constitution in the National culture the Francis Parkman Prize and Henry Adams Prize .

In 1995/96 he was President of the Organization of American Historians . He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . In 2009 he received the American Historical Association's Award for Scholarly Distinction .

He was married to the historian Carol Kammen and had two sons.

Fonts

• People of Paradox: An Inquiry Concerning the Origins of American Civilization , New York: Alfred Knopf 1972
• Colonial New York: A History . New York: Scribner, 1975, Oxford University Press 1996
• A rope of sand; the colonial agents, British politics, and the American Revolution , Cornell University Press 1968
• A season of youth: the American Revolution and the historical imagination , Oxford University Press 1978
• Editor: The Origins of the American Constitution: A Documentary History , New York: Penguin Books, 1986.
• A Machine That Would Go of Itself: The Constitution in American Culture , Alfred Knopf 1986
• Spheres of liberty: changing perceptions of liberty in American culture , University of Wisconsin Press 1986
• Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture , Alfred Knopf 1991
• Meadows of memory: images of time and tradition in American art and culture , University of Texas Press 1992
• Contested Values: Democracy and Diversity in American Culture , St. Martin's Press 1995
• American Culture, American Tastes: Social Change and the 20th Century , Alfred Knopf 1999
• Robert Gwathmey: The Life and Art of a Passionate Observer , University of North Carolina Press 1999
• Visual Shock: A History of Art Controversies in American Culture , Vintage Books 2006
• A Time to Every Purpose: The Four Seasons in American Culture , University of North Carolina Press 2004
• Digging Up the Dead: A History of Notable American Reburials , University of Chicago Press 2010

Web links

• American historian Michael G. Kammen dies at 77 , Cornell Chronicle, December 2, 2013.
• Obituary at the OAH