Robert Roswell Palmer

Robert Roswell Palmer (January 11, 1909 – June 11, 2002), commonly known as R. R. Palmer, was a distinguished American historian who specialized in eighteenth-century France. His most influential work of scholarship examined an age of democratic revolution that swept the Atlantic civilization between 1760 and 1800. He also achieved distinction as a history text writer.

Life

Born in Chicago, Illinois, United States, Palmer accelerated through the public schools, even winning a contest to write a play in Latin. He received his Ph. B. from the University of Chicago in 1931 and PhD from Cornell University three years later. His dissertation dealt with "The French Idea of American Independence on the Eve of the French Revolution". In 1936 Palmer began teaching at Princeton University where he would remain for about 30 years, interrupted with stints at Washington University in St. Louis, Yale University, and the University of Michigan, retiring in 1977. Palmer married Esther Howard in 1942, had three children and four grandchildren. His son, historian Stanley Palmer, is currently a professor of history at the University of Texas at Arlington.

Works

In 1950 he published "A History of the Modern World", which is in its tenth edition as of April 2006. He prepared the later versions with the assistance of Joel Colton and Lloyd Kramer. The text is used in many colleges and many Advanced Placement History high school classes. It is notable for its clear, essay-like writing style. Palmer's introduction covers the period from the earliest signs of human civilization to A.D. or C.E. 1300. The main body of the text covers everything from the Black Death to the Fall of the Soviet Union in European history. The book however, is not entirely chronological and is grouped into categories based on ideas, i.e. the effect of the French Revolution on modern and ancient thought may be mentioned before the French Revolution itself. The book closes with current history, including the Iraq War, and does not restrict itself to the confines of European involvement.

Palmer's most important work of historical scholarship is "The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760-1800." Published in two volumes -- "The Challenge" (1959) which won the Bancroft Prize in History, and "The Struggle" (1964) -- Palmer's masterwork traced the growth of two competing forces -- ideas of democracy and equality, on the one hand, and the growing power of aristocracies in society, on the other hand -- and the extraordinary results of the collision between these forces, including both the American Revolution and the French Revolution. The book foreshadowed the development in the 1990s and early 2000s of ideas of Atlantic history and global history, and remains to this day a valuable resource for scholars. In 1971 he published a slightly revised and condensed version of his second volume as "The World of the French Revolution."

Side-by-side with "The Age of the Democratic Revolution" is Palmer's famed and still exciting 1941 monograph, "Twelve Who Ruled." The book has never been out of print since its first appearance, and Princeton University Press reissued it as a Princeton Classic in 2006 as part of its celebration of its hundredth anniversary. "Twelve Who Ruled" is a fusion of history and collective biography, focusing on the members of the Committee of Public Safety and their efforts to guide France during the Terror.

Other works by Palmer include "Believers and Unbelievers in 18th Century France" (1939), "The Improvement of Humanity: Education and the French Revolution" (1985), "Two Tocquevilles: Father and Son" (1987), and "From Jacobin to Liberal: Marc-Antoine Jullien, 1775-1848" (1993).

Palmer has also translated such books as Georges Lefebvre, "The Coming of the French Revolution," Louis Bergeron, "France Under Napoleon," and Jean-Paul Bertaud, "The Army of the French Revolution" and was editor and translator of "From Jacobin to Liberal: Marc-Antoine Jullien, 1775-1848."

Honors and awards

In 1960 Palmer was President of the Society for French Historical Studies and in 1970 he was president of the American Historical Association. He received the Bancroft Prize, 1960 and The Antonio Feltrinelli International Prize for History in Rome, 1990 and was awarded honorary degrees by the Universities of Uppsala and Toulouse.

External links

* [http://www.historians.org/Perspectives/issues/2002/Summer/rrpalmer.cfm AHA memorial notice]
* [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0DE5DF1F3CF93BA25755C0A9649C8B63&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/Subjects/D/Deaths%20(Obituaries) "New York Times" obituary]