Edmund Morgan (historian)

Edmund Sears Morgan ( born January 17, 1916 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, † July 8, 2013 in New Haven, Connecticut) was an American historian.

Training

Edmund S. Morgan studied at Harvard University, where he in 1942 the Ph.D. obtained. A year of his studies he spent at the University of London. In 1945 he became a lecturer at the University of Chicago before he became professor at Brown University a year later. In 1955 he accepted an appointment at Yale University, where he became Sterling Professor in 1965 and taught until 1986.

Work

His books deal mainly with the American Revolution and its history. Birth of the Republic (1956) and The Puritan Dilemma (1958 ) are regarded as canonical. American Slavery, American Freedom ( 1975), and Inventing the People: The Rise of Popular Sovereignty in England and America (1988 ) were also lifted. He has also written biographies of Ezra Stiles, Roger Williams and Benjamin Franklin.

A well-known thesis Morgans relates to slavery. Morgan argued in 1975 that from 1650 established slavery in Virginia markedly reduced class-specific debates within the white majority. " Racism made ​​it possible for white Virginians to develop a devotion to the equality did English republicans had a declared to be the soul of liberty. " ( Edmund Morgan, German: "Racism allowed the white Virginianern to develop a quest for equality, which the English republicans of freedom devoted " )

Honors

Morgan is one of the most respected historians of Puritanism and the colonial history of the United States. For his services he received numerous honorary doctorates and awards, including the Bancroft Prize (1989 ), assigned by the U.S. president National Humanities Medal (2000) and the Pulitzer Prize (2006).

Writings (selection )

• The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution (1953 )
• The birth of the Republic (1956 )
• The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop (1958 )
• American Slavery, American Freedom ( 1975)