John Leonard Clive (September 25, 1924 – January 7, 1990) was an American

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...

. He was a professor at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

and 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 ...

. He is most well known for his biography of ''Thomas Babington Macaulay: The Shaping of the Historian'', for which he won the National Book Award for Biography and History.

Biography

Born Hans Leo Kleyff (later anglicized to John Leonard Clive) in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

German-Jewish The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (''circa'' 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish ...

parents, he attended the

Französisches Gymnasium Berlin The Französisches Gymnasium (french: Lycée français de Berlin) is a long-existing francophone gymnasium in Berlin, Germany. Traditionally, it is widely regarded as an elite high school. It is also the oldest public school in Berlin. Its creati ...

, before moving to England in 1937 where he went to

Buxton College Founded in 1675, Buxton College was a boys' Public School and, from 1923, a grammar school in Buxton, Derbyshire whose site has been expanded since 1990 to be used as the fully co-educational comprehensive Buxton Community School. Dorothy Dewis, ...

. In 1940 he emigrated with his family to the United States, where he attended the

University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sy ...

. After his graduation he entered the army and joined the

OSS OSS or Oss may refer to: Places * Oss, a city and municipality in the Netherlands * Osh Airport, IATA code OSS People with the name * Oss (surname), a surname Arts and entertainment * ''O.S.S.'' (film), a 1946 World War II spy film about ...

. In 1952 Clive received his Ph.D. from

and began teaching there. He received a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

in 1957. That year he published ''Scotch Reviewers: The Edinburgh Review, 1802–1815''. in 1960 Clive moved to the

, where he was an assistant and associate professor until returning to Harvard in 1965. He would remain at Harvard for the rest of his career ultimately becoming the

William R. Kenan Jr. William Rand Kenan Jr. (April 30, 1872 – July 28, 1965) was an American chemist, engineer, manufacturer, dairy farmer, and philanthropist. Early life William Rand Kenan Jr. was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, on April 30, 1872., son of Willi ...

Professor of History and Literature in 1979. Clive won the National Book Award for Biography and History in 1974 for ''Thomas Babington Macaulay: The Shaping of the Historian'', and was elected a Fellow of 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, and ...

as well. Clive retired in 1989 and gave his last lecture that December. He died of a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which may tr ...

on January 7, 1990, in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

. He was posthumously awarded the

National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism The National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism, established in 1975, is an annual American literary award presented by the National Book Critics Circle The National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) is an American nonprofit organization ( 501(c) ...

for his final book, ''Not by Fact Alone: Essays on the Writing and Reading of History''.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Clive, John Leonard 1924 births 1990 deaths American male non-fiction writers United States Army personnel of World War II Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Harvard University alumni Harvard University faculty Französisches Gymnasium Berlin alumni People of the Office of Strategic Services University of Chicago faculty University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni 20th-century American historians Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States Military personnel from Berlin 20th-century American male writers

Biography

Further reading

Notes