Felix Gilbert (May 21, 1905 – February 14, 1991) was a German-born American historian of early modern and modern

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

. Gilbert was born in

Baden-Baden Baden-Baden () is a spa town in the state of Baden-Württemberg, south-western Germany, at the north-western border of the Black Forest mountain range on the small river Oos, ten kilometres (six miles) east of the Rhine, the border with Fra ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, to a middle-class Jewish family, and part of the Mendelssohn Bartholdy clan. In the latter half of the 1920s, Gilbert studied under

Friedrich Meinecke Friedrich Meinecke (October 20, 1862 – February 6, 1954) was a German historian, with national liberal and anti-Semitic views, who supported the Nazi invasion of Poland. After World War II, as a representative of an older tradition, he criti ...

at the

University of Berlin Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative ...

. Gilbert's area of expertise was the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

, especially the diplomatic history of the period He was a fellow of the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent schola ...

in Princeton from 1962 to 1975, and maintained an active involvement as an emeritus faculty member until his death in 1991. He was elected to the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

in 1963 and the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

in 1969. The main reading room of the German Historical Institute in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

is named in his honor.

Work

*''Johann Gustav Droysen und die preussisch-deutsche Frage'', diss., Berlin 1931. *''Makers of Modern Strategy: Military Thought from Machiavelli to Hitler'', (co-edited with Edward M. Earle and

Gordon A. Craig Gordon Alexander Craig (November 13, 1913 – October 30, 2005) was a Scottish-American liberal historian of German history and of diplomatic history. Early life Craig was born in Glasgow. In 1925 he emigrated with his family to Toronto, Onta ...

) Princeton, N.J. 1943; New York 1966, 1971. *"Bernardo Rucellai and the Orti Oricellari: A Study on the Origin of Modern Political Thought". In: ''Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes'', Volume 12, 1949, p. 101–131. *''The Diplomats, 1919–1939'', (co-edited with Gordon A. Craig), Princeton, N.J. 1954; New York 1963. *''To the Farewell Address: Ideas of Early American Foreign Policy'', Princeton, N.J. 1961. (winner of the 1962

Bancroft Prize The Bancroft Prize is awarded each year by the trustees of Columbia University for books about diplomacy or the history of the Americas. It was established in 1948, with a bequest from Frederic Bancroft, in his memory and that of his brother, ...

). *''Machiavelli and Guicciardini: Politics and History in Sixteenth-Century Florence'', Princeton, N.J. 1965. * *''History: Choice and Commitment'', Cambridge, Massachusetts 1977. *''The Pope, His Banker, and Venice'', Cambridge, Massachusetts 1981. *''A European Past: Memoirs, 1905-1945'', 1988. *''History: Politics or Culture? Reflections on Ranke and Burckhardt'', 1990.

Endnotes

1905 births 1991 deaths American people of German-Jewish descent German emigrants to the United States Jewish American historians 20th-century American historians American male non-fiction writers Institute for Advanced Study faculty People from Baden-Baden Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class) Bancroft Prize winners 20th-century American male writers Corresponding Fellows of the British Academy 20th-century American Jews {{US-historian-stub Members of the American Philosophical Society

Work

Further reading

Endnotes