George Philip Baker (
Plumstead
Plumstead is an area in southeast London, within the Royal Borough of Greenwich, England. It is located east of Woolwich.
History
Until 1965, Plumstead was in the historic counties of England, historic county of Kent and the detail of mu ...
, 21 May 1879 – 19 April 1951
[''George Philip Baker, a Historian who was Deaf'', blogs.ucl.ac.uk (17/08/2012).](_blank)
/ref>) was a British author, who published several popular history
Popular history is a broad genre of historiography that takes a popular approach, aims at a wide readership, and usually emphasizes narrative, personality and vivid detail over scholarly analysis. The term is used in contradistinction to professio ...
books in the 1920s and 1930s.
Life
As Baker was deaf from eight years old, he couldn't serve in the English army, but he would be almost all of his adult life serve as a civil servant in the Royal Artillery.military history
Military history is the study of armed conflict in the history of humanity, and its impact on the societies, cultures and economies thereof, as well as the resulting changes to local and international relationships.
Professional historians norma ...
and would stress the importance of political and economical developments as underlying causes for the military capacities that would cause the rise and fall of empires. Although he wasn't a professional scholar, he always read the contemporary scientific literature in order to be well informed to talk about his subject. He wrote books about several historical figures (Sulla
Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix (; 138–78 BC), commonly known as Sulla, was a Roman general and statesman. He won the first large-scale civil war in Roman history and became the first man of the Republic to seize power through force.
Sulla had ...
, Hannibal
Hannibal (; xpu, 𐤇𐤍𐤁𐤏𐤋, ''Ḥannibaʿl''; 247 – between 183 and 181 BC) was a Carthaginian general and statesman who commanded the forces of Carthage in their battle against the Roman Republic during the Second Puni ...
, Tiberius
Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus (; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March AD 37) was the second Roman emperor. He reigned from AD 14 until 37, succeeding his stepfather, the first Roman emperor Augustus. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC. His father ...
, Constantine the Great
Constantine I ( , ; la, Flavius Valerius Constantinus, ; ; 27 February 22 May 337), also known as Constantine the Great, was Roman emperor from AD 306 to 337, the first one to Constantine the Great and Christianity, convert to Christiani ...
, Justinian I
Justinian I (; la, Iustinianus, ; grc-gre, Ἰουστινιανός ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was the Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565.
His reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renovat ...
, Charlemagne
Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first Holy ...
, the warrior kings of Wessex
la, Regnum Occidentalium Saxonum
, conventional_long_name = Kingdom of the West Saxons
, common_name = Wessex
, image_map = Southern British Isles 9th century.svg
, map_caption = S ...
), as well as a book on decisive battles that would several times be reprinted (''A Book of Battles'', 1935.). In his books he paid especially attention to military tactics and strategies.
Works[There are several reprints and editions of his works. The years mentioned in this list are of the first prints.]
*''Sulla the fortunate: the great dictator; being an essay on politics in the form of a historical biography'', New York, 1927.
''Tiberius Cæsar'', New York, 1928.
*''Hannibal'', New York, 1929.
*''Constantine the Great and the Christian revolution'', New York, 1930.
*''The fighting kings of Wessex: a gallery of portraits'', New York, 1931.
*''Justinian'', New York, 1931.
*''Charlemagne, and the united states of Europe'', New York, 1932.
*''Twelve centuries of Rome: 753 B.C. - A.D. 476'', London, 1934.
*''A book of battles; being a description of fifteen battles that determined the course of civilization, together with some account of the men who fought them and the women who influenced them'', New York, 1935.
*''Augustus: the Golden Age of Rome'', New York, 1937.
Notes
External links
, Review of George Philip Baker, ''Hannibal'', in ''H-WAR, H-Net Reviews'' (2000).
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baker, George Philip
1879 births
1951 deaths
British writers