Theodore H. von Laue

Theodore Hermann von Laue (born June 22, 1916 in Frankfurt am Main ; died January 22, 2000 in Worcester , Massachusetts ) was an American historian of German origin. He was a son of Max von Laue , a Nobel laureate in physics .

Life

After a year of study at the University of Freiburg , he was sent in 1937 by his father because of the political situation in Germany for further study in the USA, where he worked in Princeton graduated with a PhD on the social legislation of Otto von Bismarck completed. His next teaching positions were at Swarthmore College , the University of California at Riverside , Washington University in St. Louis , before he was Jacob & Frances Hiatt Professor of European History at Clark University in Worcester where he taught from 1970 to 1982. In 1962 and 1974 he won a Guggenheim grant . Laue died in 2000 after a brief illness, leaving behind his wife Angela, two daughters and two grandchildren.

In the American Historical Association's obituary , he is described as humble, humorous and humane and as a very private person who seldom identified himself as a Quaker and about whom few knew he was the anti-war movement at Washington University in St Louis helped initiate or marched with Martin Luther King in Selma, Alabama .

Work

One of the first works dealt with Leopold von Ranke's “scientific objectivity” and showed the role of Romanticism in his work. According to the obituary, he then dealt with Russian history and learned Russian in the process. In his book Sergei Witte and the Industrialization of Russia , he describes the problems involved in converting Western cultural elements into another, here Russian: Witte's attempts have failed because of the conservative resistance, including that of Tsar Nicholas II (Russia) . This subject led to well-known books such as “Why Lenin? Why Stalin? ”From 1964, which was revised in 1993 with the title“ Why Lenin? Why Stalin? Why Gorbachev? ”Was reissued. The process of attempting the westernization of Russian culture discussed in these works ended in his last, larger work, "The World Revolution of Westernization", which appeared in 1987. William H. McNeill , historian at the University of Chicago , called it a fine and wise book - wise in a way few books are, according to the obituary . A review of his book The Global City , written in 1969, shows that he already sees the approach of westernizing other cultures for the rest of the 20th century and beyond globally with the resulting tensions worldwide, including within Western culture. From the lecture given by Theodore von Laue in 1994, the following points of his view of the world historical situation can be summarized:

1. Western culture is globally present and all of its essential elements have established themselves throughout history worldwide. (1st sentence of Chapter VI)

2. It can only be adopted in other cultures with many problems; resistance is stirring; it shows disorientation; dictatorships arise. (3rd paragraph of Chapter VI)

3. Due to the mutual influence of different cultures around the world, contradicting developments arise everywhere: violent resistance to foreign influences on one's own culture on the one hand and the need for common structures for peaceful competition between cultures for further development on the other. (6th paragraph of Chapter VII)

4. Above all of this are the global problems of population development, the raw material situation, environmental pollution and the climate. "Huge problems loom ahead." (7th paragraph of Chapter VII)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Andreas W. Daum, Hartmut Lehmann, James J. Sheehan (eds.): The Second Generation. Émigrés from Nazi Germany as Historians. With a Biobibliographic Guide . Berghahn Books, New York 2016, ISBN 978-1-78238-985-9 , pp. 415-417 .
2. ↑ "so as not to grow up in a country ruled by gangsters," as von Laue recalled
3. ^ ^{A b} Paul Ropp, Douglas Little: In Memoriam: Theodore H. Von Laue. American Historical Association, December 1, 2000, accessed March 2, 2020 . 
4. ^ Leopold Ranke: the formative years . (First edition: Princeton University Press, 1950).
5. ^ Sergei Witte and the industrialization of Russia . Columbia University Press, ISBN 978-0-689-70196-2 (first edition: 1963).
6. ↑ Why Lenin? Why Stalin? JB Lippincott, 1971, OCLC 285694 (first edition: 1964).
7. ↑ Why Lenin? Why Stalin? Why Gorbachev? HarperCollins, 1993, ISBN 978-0-06-501111-1 .
8. ^ Theodore Hermann Von Laue: The World Revolution of Westernization: the Twentieth Century in Global Perspective . Oxford University Press, New York 1987, ISBN 978-0-19-504907-7 .
9. ↑ https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/theodore-h-von-laue-2/the-global-city/
10. ^ A World History for the Future? Retrieved March 6, 2020 .