Robert Lee Wolff (26 December 1915,

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

– 11 November 1980,

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, ...

) was a Harvard history professor, known for his 1956 book ''The Balkans in our time'' "This addition to the American Foreign Policy Library Series is easily the best single survey of the recent history of Jugoslavia, Rumania, Bulgaria and Albania. About a third of the volume is devoted to a review of the Balkans before 1939; the remainder leads us into the tortured war years and the bleak era of Communist domination. The author is Professor of History at Harvard." and his library collection of English novels of the Victorian period with over 18,000 items. Wolff received his bachelor's degree (1936) and his master's degree from

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 ...

, where he was a teaching fellow from 1937 to 1941, when he left Harvard to join the

Office of Strategic Services The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the intelligence agency of the United States during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branc ...

(O.S.S.). As a leading expert on the Balkans, he was assistant to the director of the Balkans section of the O.S.S. After the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Wolff taught for four years at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an educational institution, institution of higher education, higher (or Tertiary education, tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. Universities ty ...

, and then in 1950 became an associate professor in the Harvard history department. He became a full professor in 1955 and served as the chair of the department from 1960 to 1963. Wolff 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, and ...

in 1954 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 1963. In 1963–1964 Wolff was a

Guggenheim fellow 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 ...

. He died of a heart attack in 1980 at the age of 64, while still an active member of the Harvard history department. Wolff wrote articles, prefaces, and books on history and English literature and was the co-author of three widely used textbooks in high school and undergraduate history courses. His library of English novels of the

Victorian period In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardian ...

was acquired in the 1980s by the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

for $2.6 million.

Works

* with

Crane Brinton Clarence Crane Brinton (Winsted, Connecticut, 1898 – Cambridge, Massachusetts, September 7, 1968) was an American historian of France, as well as an historian of ideas. His most famous work, ''The Anatomy of Revolution'' (1938) likened the dyna ...

and John B. Christopher: (textbook; 2nd edn. 1960; 3rd edn. 1967; 4th edn. 1971; 5th edn. 1976) * (revised edn. 1974; reprinted in 1978) * with Crane Brinton and John B. Christopher: (textbook; 2nd edn. 1967; 3rd edn. 1973)) * * with Crane Brinton and John B. Christopher: (textbook: 2nd edn. 1969; 3rd edn. 1973; 4th edn. 1981) * * * * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wolff, Robert Lee 1915 births 1980 deaths American book and manuscript collectors American bibliographers American medievalists Harvard University alumni Harvard University faculty Historians of the Balkans 20th-century American historians American male non-fiction writers People from New York City Historians from New York (state) University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty People of the Office of Strategic Services 20th-century American male writers Members of the American Philosophical Society