Charles Loch Mowat (4 October 1911 – 23 June 1970) was a British-born American historian.
Biography
Mowat was educated at
Marlborough College
Marlborough College is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school (English Independent school (United Kingdom), independent boarding school) for pupils aged 13 to 18 in Marlborough, Wiltshire, England. Founded in 1843 for the sons of Church ...
and
St John's College, Oxford
St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. Founded as a men's college in 1555, it has been coeducational since 1979.Communication from Michael Riordan, college archivist Its founder, Sir Thomas White, intended to pro ...
.
[ John Ramsden (ed.), ''The Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century British Politics'' (Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 446.] In 1934 he emigrated to the United States, where he became an American citizen.
From 1934 until 1936 he taught at the
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...
. In 1936 he took up a position at the
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...
. His opposition to
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making false or unfounded accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism, and especially when done in a public and attention-grabbing manner.
The term origin ...
led to him leaving UCLA and taking a post at the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
in 1950.
In 1958 he returned to Britain to be professor of history at the
University College of North Wales, Bangor
, former_names = University College of North Wales (1884–1996) University of Wales, Bangor (1996–2007)
, image = File:Arms_of_Bangor_University.svg
, image_size = 250px
, caption = Arms
...
, a post he held until 1958.
His best known book is ''Britain Between the Wars'', which became the standard text on the nation's
interwar period
In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days), the end of the World War I, First World War to the beginning of the World War II, Second World War. The in ...
.
A. J. P. Taylor
Alan John Percivale Taylor (25 March 1906 – 7 September 1990) was a British historian who specialised in 19th- and 20th-century European diplomacy. Both a journalist and a broadcaster, he became well known to millions through his televis ...
wrote the volume in the ''
Oxford History of England
The Oxford History of England (1934–1965) was a notable book series on the history of the United Kingdom. Published by Oxford University Press, it was originally intended to span from Roman Britain to the outbreak of the First World War in fourte ...
'' covering 1914–1945. After he was asked how he found out what basically happened in the period, Taylor answered: "I looked it up in Mowat".
[Boyd Hilton, ''A Mad, Bad, and Dangerous People? England, 1783-1846'' (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006), p. 671.]
Works
*''East Florida as a British Province, 1763-84'' (1943).
*''Britain Between the Wars, 1918–1940'' (1955).
online free to borrow*''The Charity Organisation Society, 1869–1913'' (1961).
*''The Golden Valley Railway'' (1964).
Notes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mowat, C. L.
1911 births
1970 deaths
University of Minnesota alumni
People educated at Marlborough College
Alumni of St John's College, Oxford
British emigrants to the United States
20th-century American historians
20th-century American male writers
American male non-fiction writers