Paul Dukes (historian)
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Paul Dukes
FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soci ...
(5 April 1934 – 25 August 2021) was a historian at the
University of Aberdeen The University of Aberdeen ( sco, University o' 'Aiberdeen; abbreviated as ''Aberd.'' in List of post-nominal letters (United Kingdom), post-nominals; gd, Oilthigh Obar Dheathain) is a public university, public research university in Aberdeen, Sc ...
, known for his work relating to Russia and Europe.


Early life

Dukes was born in
Wallington, Surrey Wallington is a town in the London Borough of Sutton, in South London, England. It is south south-west of Charing Cross. Before the Municipal Borough of Beddington and Wallington merged into the London Borough of Sutton in Greater London in 1965, ...
, a suburb of London. He was an
Exhibitioner An exhibition is a type of scholarship award or bursary. United Kingdom and Ireland At the universities of Dublin, Oxford, Cambridge and Sheffield, at some public schools, and various other UK educational establishments, an exhibition is a sma ...
at
Peterhouse, Cambridge Peterhouse is the oldest constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England, founded in 1284 by Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely. Today, Peterhouse has 254 undergraduates, 116 full-time graduate students and 54 fellows. It is quite ...
from 1951 to 1954, and then from 1954 to 1956, he was Teaching Fellow in American history at the
University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...
in
Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
, completing an MA thesis under the supervision of Max Savelle, ''Jonathan Boucher, Tory Parson, Teacher and Political Theorist''. He then returned to the UK to carry out his
National Service National service is the system of voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939. The l ...
from 1956 to 1958, studying the Russian Language at the
Joint Services School for Linguists The Joint Services School for Linguists (JSSL) was founded in 1951 by the British armed services to provide language training, principally in Russian, and largely to selected conscripts undergoing National Service. The school closed with the endi ...
in Crail, Fife, Scotland. After demobilisation, he taught American History for the
University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of M ...
Overseas at US bases in Germany and France from 1958 to 1959 and then began work for a PhD at the
School of Slavonic and East European Studies The UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES ) is a school of University College London (UCL) specializing in Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, Russia and Eurasia. It teaches a range of subjects, including the history, ...
,
University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...
. He completed his doctoral dissertation, ''The Russian Nobility and the Legislative Commission of 1767'' under
Hugh Seton-Watson George Hugh Nicolas Seton-Watson, CBE, FBA (15 February 1916 – 19 December 1984) was a British historian and political scientist specialising in Russia. Early life Seton-Watson was one of the two sons of Robert William Seton-Watson, the act ...
and John L. H. Keep in 1964.*


Academic career

In September 1964,
John D. Hargreaves John Desmond Hargreaves (25 January 1924 – 14 February 2015) was the Burnett-Fletcher_Chair_of_History, Burnett-Fletcher Professor of History at the University of Aberdeen. Hargreaves was noted for his work on the history of Africa; its Colonis ...
,
Burnett-Fletcher Chair of History The Burnett-Fletcher Chair of History at the University of Aberdeen, was founded in 1903. The professorship was established upon funds left by John Burnett, merchant in Aberdeen, and by Mary E. Fletcher, widow of Robert Fletcher. It is a general ch ...
at the
University of Aberdeen The University of Aberdeen ( sco, University o' 'Aiberdeen; abbreviated as ''Aberd.'' in List of post-nominal letters (United Kingdom), post-nominals; gd, Oilthigh Obar Dheathain) is a public university, public research university in Aberdeen, Sc ...
appointed him as Assistant. Dukes remained at Aberdeen except for visiting appointments at Auckland in 1974 and Cornell in 1988. Successive appointments at Aberdeen included a stint as Head of Department. Beginning in 1989, he was Director of the Centre for Soviet (later Russian) and East European Studies. His first book, on
Catherine the Great , en, Catherine Alexeievna Romanova, link=yes , house = , father = Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst , mother = Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp , birth_date = , birth_name = Princess Sophie of Anhal ...
, based on his PhD dissertation, was published in 1967 (and reissued in 2008). Then, over subsequent years, he published books on Russian, European and World History. In 1999, after 35 years at Aberdeen, he retired. He was honoured by a
Festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...
and also by election as a
Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soci ...
– the Scottish Academy. He has continued to publish on relevant topics. A new interest in how the study of history should adapt itself to the imperatives of the
Anthropocene The Anthropocene ( ) is a proposed geological epoch dating from the commencement of significant human impact on Earth's geology and ecosystems, including, but not limited to, anthropogenic climate change. , neither the International Commissi ...
era led to a book, with an approach stemming from the
Scottish Enlightenment The Scottish Enlightenment ( sco, Scots Enlichtenment, gd, Soillseachadh na h-Alba) was the period in 18th- and early-19th-century Scotland characterised by an outpouring of intellectual and scientific accomplishments. By the eighteenth century ...
. This has encouraged him to produce an intermittent blo
''Pandisciplinarity''
now discontinued. He has completed a history of the
Urals The Ural Mountains ( ; rus, Ура́льские го́ры, r=Uralskiye gory, p=ʊˈralʲskʲɪjə ˈɡorɨ; ba, Урал тауҙары) or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through European ...
, and a study of great men in the Second World War. He was invited to The People's Republic of China:
Nankai University Nankai University (NKU or Nankai; ) is a national public research university located in Tianjin, China. It is a prestigious Chinese state Class A Double First Class University approved by the central government of China, and a member of the fo ...
, Tianjin in 2005 and to
Nankai University Nankai University (NKU or Nankai; ) is a national public research university located in Tianjin, China. It is a prestigious Chinese state Class A Double First Class University approved by the central government of China, and a member of the fo ...
and
Jilin University Jilin University (JLU; ; often abbreviated JLU or ) is a leading national research university located in Changchun, China. It is under the direct jurisdiction of China's Ministry of Education. It is a Chinese Ministry of Education Class A Doub ...
, Changchun in 2012.


Bibliography

* Reprinted 2008. * (Joint editor with R. C. Bridges, J. D. Hargreaves and William Scott) ''Nations and Empires: Documents on the History of Europe and on its Relations with the World since 1648'', Macmillan, 1969. * ''The Emergence of the Superpowers: A Short Comparative History of the USA and the USSR'', Macmillan and Harper & Row, 1970 (Dutch translation,''Amerika Rusland : vergelijkende geschiedenis'' 1974). * ''A History of Russia: Medieval, Modern, Contemporary'', Macmillan and McGraw Hill, 1974;. 2nd. ed., Macmillan and Duke UP, 1990; 3rd. ed., Macmillan and Duke UP, 1997. (Romanian translation, ''Istoria Rusiei'', 2009) * ''Russia under Catherine the Great'', 2 vols., Oriental Research Partners, 1978-9. * ''October and the World: Perspectives on the Russian Revolution'', Macmillan, 1979. * ''The Making of Russian Absolutism, 1613-1801'', Longman History of Russia, Longman, 1982; 2nd ed., 1990. * ''A History of Europe, 1648-1948: The Arrival, The Rise, the Fall'', Macmillan, 1985. * ''The Last Great Game, USA versus USSR: Events, Conjunctures, Structures,'' Pinter, 1989. * (Joint Editor with John Dunkley) ''Culture and Revolution'', Pinter, 1989. *(Editor) ''Russia and Europe'', Collins & Brown, 1991. *(Joint Editor with Terry Brotherstone) ''The Trotsky Reappraisal'', Edinburgh UP, 1992. (Japanese translation, ''トロツキー再評価 /Torotsukī saihyōka,'' 1994) *(Editor) ''The Universities of Aberdeen and Europe: The First Three Centuries'', Quincentennial Studies in the History of the University of Aberdeen, General Editor Jennifer Carter, Aberdeen UP, 1995. *(Editor) ''Frontiers of European Culture'', Edwin Mellen Press, 1996. * ''World Order in History: Russia and the West'', Routledge, 1995. * ''The Superpowers: A Short History'', Taylor and Francis, 2000. This is his most widely held book; According to WorldCat, the book is held in 1050 libraries * ''Paths to a New Europe: From Pre-Modern to Post-Modern Times'', Palgrave, 2004. * ''The USA in the Making of the USSR: The Washington Conference, 1921-1922, and ‘Uninvited Russia’'', Taylor and Francis, 2004. *(Joint Author with Jarmo T. Kotilaine and Graeme P. Herd) ''Stuarts and Romanovs: The Rise and Fall of a Special Relationship'', Dundee UP, 2009. * ''Minutes to Midnight: History and the Anthropocene Era since 1763'', Anthem, 2011. * * ''A History of the Urals: Russia's Crucible from the Early Empire to the Post-Soviet Era'', Bloomsbury, 2015. * * ''Great Men in the Second World War: The Rise and Fall of the Big Three'', Bloomsbury, 2017.


References

* This account of his early life is derived largely from the introduction to the Festschrift Cathryn Brennan and Murray Frame, eds, ''Russia and the wider world in historical perspective: essays for Paul Dukes'', Macmillan, 2000. According to WorldCat, the book is held in 309 libraries WorldCat item record
/ref> {{DEFAULTSORT:Dukes, Paul 1934 births 2021 deaths People from Surrey British historians Alumni of Peterhouse, Cambridge University of Washington faculty Academics of the University of Aberdeen Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh History Today people