RR Palmer

Robert Roswell Palmer (born January 11, 1909 in Chicago , Illinois , † June 11, 2002 in Newtown , Pennsylvania ) was an American historian .

Life

Palmer studied with Louis Gottschalk at the University of Chicago , where he made his bachelor's degree in 1931, and at Cornell University , where he received his doctorate in 1934 under Carl L. Becker . His dissertation topic was the French reception of American independence on the eve of the French Revolution. In 1936 he became an instructor and later a professor at Princeton University . 1963 to 1966 he was dean at Washington University and then professor at Yale University . In 1977 he retired and was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study

He was visiting professor in Berkeley, Chicago, Colorado and Michigan, among others.

Palmer was a specialist in the French Revolution and is considered a pioneer of an expanded transatlantic historical view of the revolution ( Atlantic History ). He is particularly well-known for his textbook A History of the Modern World , first published in 1950 , which had a total print run of almost 2 million copies and is still used today in the history class of numerous American high schools and colleges. His two-volume overview of the revolutionary events of the 18th century on both sides of the Atlantic, The Age of the Democratic Revolution (1959–1964) is still considered a standard work to this day.

In 1990 Palmer was awarded the international Antonio Feltrinelli Prize . In 1970 he was President of the American Historical Association and in 1961 of the Society for French Historical Studies . In 1958 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

He had been married to Esther Howard since 1942 and had three children. His son Stanley Palmer is a history professor at the University of Texas at Arlington.

Fonts

• Catholics and Unbelievers in 18th Century France . Princeton University Press, 1939.
• Twelve Who Ruled . Princeton University Press 1941.
• A History of the Modern World . Knopf, New York 1950, 9th edition 2002 (since the 2nd edition with Joel Colton)
• The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760-1800 . Volume I: The Challenge . Princeton University Press 1959 (Volume 1 received the Bancroft Prize ), German translation under the title The Age of the Democratic Revolution. A comparative history of Europe and America from 1760 to the French Revolution
• The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760-1800 . Volume II: The Struggle . Princeton University Press, 1964.
• The World of the French Revolution . Harper & Row, New York 1971.
• (Ed.): The School of the French Revolution: A Documentary History of the College of Louis-le-Grand and its Director, Jean-François Champagne, 1762-1814 . Princeton University Press, 1975.
• The Improvement of Humanity: Education and the French Revolution . Princeton University Press, 1985.
• Two Tocquevilles: Father and Son . Princeton University Press, 1987.
• (Ed.): From Jacobin to Liberal: Marc-Antoine Jullien , 1775–1848 . Princeton University Press, 1993
• The School of the French Revolution: A Documentary History of The College of Louis-le-Grand and Its Director, Jean-François Champagne (1975)

Web links

• Biography. In: Perspectives on History by his son Stanley Palmer