Clarence Crane Brinton ( Winsted, Connecticut, 1898 –

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, ...

, September 7, 1968) was an American historian of

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, as well as an historian of ideas. His most famous work, ''

The Anatomy of Revolution ''The Anatomy of Revolution'' is a 1938 book by Crane Brinton outlining the "uniformities" of four major political revolutions: the English Revolution of the 1640s, the American, the French, and the 1917 Russian Revolution. Brinton notes how t ...

'' (1938) likened the dynamics of revolutionary movements to the progress of fever. Born in Winsted, Connecticut, his family soon moved to

Springfield, Massachusetts Springfield is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States, and the seat of Hampden County. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers: the western Westfield River, th ...

, where he grew up and attended the public schools there before entering

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 highe ...

in 1915. His excellent academic performance enabled him to win a

Rhodes Scholarship The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...

to attend

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

, receiving a

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

(PhD) degree in 1923. Brinton then began teaching at

that same year, becoming full professor in 1942 and remaining at Harvard until his death. He was

McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History The McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History is a senior professorship at Harvard University. It was endowed by the will of wealthy merchant John McLean. The first McLean Professor was Jared Sparks who held the chair between 1838 and 1849; he ...

from 1946 to 1968. For many years he taught a popular course at Harvard known informally to his students as "Brunch with Brinton." Brinton was known for his witty, convivial, and urbane writing and commentary, and was fluent in French. During World War II he was for a time Chief of Research and Analysis in London in 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 ...

. He was also Fire Marshal for

St. Paul's Cathedral St Paul's Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in London and is the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London. It is on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London and is a Gra ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, which withstood the Blitz with minor damages. After the war, he was commended by the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, ...

for "Conspicuous Contribution to the Liberation of France" and was chairman of the

Harvard Society of Fellows The Society of Fellows is a group of scholars selected at the beginnings of their careers by Harvard University for their potential to advance academic wisdom, upon whom are bestowed distinctive opportunities to foster their individual and intell ...

in the late 1940s. Membership during that period included

McGeorge Bundy McGeorge "Mac" Bundy (March 30, 1919 – September 16, 1996) was an American academic who served as the U.S. National Security Advisor to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 through 1966. He was president of the Ford Foun ...

and

Ray Cline Ray Steiner Cline (June 4, 1918 – March 16, 1996) was an official at the United States Central Intelligence Agency and is best known for being the chief CIA analyst during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Early life and family Ray S. Cline was born i ...

, who would go on to become quite influential in

national security National security, or national defence, is the security and defence of a sovereign state, including its citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of government. Originally conceived as protection against military att ...

and

intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can ...

. In the early 1960s Brinton was the dissertation supervisor at Harvard of the young historian

Will Johnston William Michael Johnston (born 1936), known as Will Johnston, is an American historian whose field is European intellectual history. He publishes his work under the name of William M. Johnston, partially in close collaboration with translators. Si ...

. He also served as an advisor for historian

Elizabeth Eisenstein Elizabeth Lewisohn Eisenstein (October 11, 1923 – January 31, 2016) was an American historian of the French Revolution and early 19th-century France. She is well known for her work on the history of early printing, writing on the transition in ...

, author of ''The Printing Press as an Agent of Change''. In 1963 Brinton was elected president of the

American Historical Association The American Historical Association (AHA) is the oldest professional association of historians in the United States and the largest such organization in the world. Founded in 1884, the AHA works to protect academic freedom, develop professional s ...

. He was also president of the

Society for French Historical Studies The Society for French Historical Studies (SFHS) is, along with the Western Society for French History (WSFH), one of the two primary historical societies devoted to the study of French history headquartered in the United States. The SFHS edits t ...

. On February 19, 1968 Brinton testified at the Fulbright Hearings on the

Vietnam war The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

as to the nature of the Vietnamese opposition, saying that Americans are sympathetic to a revolution but not a Communist one, and that if

Ho Chi Minh (: ; born ; 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), commonly known as (' Uncle Hồ'), also known as ('President Hồ'), (' Old father of the people') and by other aliases, was a Vietnamese revolutionary and statesman. He served as P ...

had not been a Communist, "The whole story would have been different.". Brinton wrote a review of

Carroll Quigley Carroll Quigley (; November 9, 1910 – January 3, 1977) was an American historian and theorist of the evolution of civilizations. He is remembered for his teaching work as a professor at Georgetown University, and for his writing about ...

's book ''

Tragedy and Hope ''Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time'' is a work of history written by former Georgetown University professor and historian Carroll Quigley. The book covers the period of roughly 1880 to 1963 and is multidisciplinary in nature ...

''. Among those his scholarship inspired were

Samuel P. Huntington Samuel Phillips Huntington (April 18, 1927December 24, 2008) was an American political scientist, adviser, and academic. He spent more than half a century at Harvard University, where he was director of Harvard's Center for International Affairs ...

, who cited Brinton many times in his book '' Political Order in Changing Societies,'' and Robert Struble, Jr., in his ''Treatise on Twelve Lights.''

Works

Articles
"Lord Acton's Philosophy of History."
''

The Harvard Theological Review The ''Harvard Theological Review'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal established in 1908 and published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Harvard Divinity School. It covers a wide spectrum of fields in theological and rel ...

'', Vol. 12, No. 1, January 1919, pp. 84–112. .
"The History of Paper Money to the War."
''

The Journal of Modern History ''The Journal of Modern History'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering European intellectual, political, and cultural history, published by the University of Chicago Press. Established in 1929, the journal covers events from app ...

'', Vol. 6, No. 3, September 1934, pp. 308–318. .
"Napoleon and Hitler."
''

Foreign Affairs ''Foreign Affairs'' is an American magazine of international relations and U.S. foreign policy published by the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, membership organization and think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy a ...

'', Vol. 20, No. 2, January 1942, pp. 213–225. .
"Comment on Gay."
''

American Historical Review ''The American Historical Review'' is a quarterly academic history journal and the official publication of the American Historical Association. It targets readers interested in all periods and facets of history and has often been described as the ...

'', Vol. 66, No. 3, April 1, 1961, pp. 677–681.
"Many Mansions."
''

'', Vol. 69, No. 2, January 1964, pp. 309–326. ."Many Mansions."
'

''. Archived fro
the original
*:An address presented at the annual meeting of the

at the Sheraton Hotel, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on December 29, 1963.
"Ideas in History."
''

'', Vol. 37, No. 4, December 1965, pp. 464–468. . Books
''The Political Ideas of the English Romanticists''
Oxford:

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...

, 1926. *''The Jacobins: An Essay in the New History''. New York:

The Macmillan Company Macmillan Inc. is a defunct American book publishing company. Originally established as the American division of the British Macmillan Publishers, the two were later separated and acquired by other companies, with the remnants of the original A ...

, 1930. *:A detailed account of the political radicals of the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...

. Reissued by

Transaction Publishers Transaction Publishers was a New Jersey-based publishing house that specialized in social science books and journals. It was located on the Livingston Campus of Rutgers University. Transaction was sold to Taylor & Francis in 2016 and merged wit ...

(2012) with a new introduction: "Crane Brinton, The New History, and Retrospective Sociology," by Howard G. Schneiderman.
''English Political Thought in the Nineteenth Century''
London: E. Benn, 1933.
''A Decade of Revolution, 1789–1799''
New York, London:

Harper & Brothers Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins based in New York City. History J. & J. Harper (1817–1833) James Harper and his brother John, printers by training, started their book publishin ...

, 1934. *:A study of the

. Reprinted by Westport, CT:

Greenwood Press Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. (GPG), also known as ABC-Clio/Greenwood (stylized ABC-CLIO/Greenwood), is an educational and academic publisher (middle school through university level) which is today part of ABC-Clio. Established in 1967 as Gr ...

, 1983, 1934. * ''The Lives of Talleyrand''. New York: Norton, 1936. *:A biography of Talleyrand with a uniquely favorable perspective.
''French Revolutionary Legislation on Illegitimacy, 1789–1804''
Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retir ...

, 1936.Crane Brinton Biography: Bibliography
''

''. Archived fro
the original
*''

''. New York:

W.W. Norton W. W. Norton & Company is an American publishing company based in New York City. Established in 1923, it has been owned wholly by its employees since the early 1960s. The company is known for its Norton Anthologies (particularly ''The Norton An ...

, 1938. *:A revised collection of lectures delivered in Boston at the foundation of the Lowell Institute in February and March, 1938.
''Nietzsche''
Cambridge:

, 1941. *:A highly critical account of the German philosopher. Reprinted by

Harper Torchbooks Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins based in New York City. History J. & J. Harper (1817–1833) James Harper and his brother John, printers by training, started their book publishi ...

(The Academy Library) in 1965.
''The United States and Britain''
Cambridge:

, 1945. *:Maps prepared under the cartographic direction of

Arthur H. Robinson Arthur H. Robinson (January 5, 1915 – October 10, 2004) was an American geographer and cartographer, who was professor in the Geography Department at the University of Wisconsin–Madison from 1947 until he retired in 1980. He was a prolific w ...

.
''From Many, One: The Process of Political Integration, the Problem of World Government''
Cambridge:

, 1948. *:"Based on lectures delivered at

Pomona College Pomona College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Claremont, California. It was established in 1887 by a group of Congregationalists who wanted to recreate a "college of the New England type" in Southern California. In 1925, it became t ...

, Claremont, California, in March 1947 under the Joseph Horsfall Johnson Foundation."
''English Political Thought in the Nineteenth Century''
Cambridge:

, 1949.
''Ideas and Men: the Story of Western Thought''
New York:

Prentice-Hall Prentice Hall was an American major educational publisher owned by Savvas Learning Company. Prentice Hall publishes print and digital content for the 6–12 and higher-education market, and distributes its technical titles through the Safari ...

, 1950. *:An account of Western thought from

ancient Greece Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cu ...

to the present.
''The Temper of Western Europe''
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1953.
''Modern Civilization: A History of the Last Five Centuries''
with John B. Christopher &

Robert Lee Wolff Robert Lee Wolff (26 December 1915, New York City – 11 November 1980, Cambridge, Massachusetts) 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 ...

. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:

, 1957.
''A History of Western Morals''
New York:

Harcourt, Brace Harcourt () was an American publishing firm with a long history of publishing fiction and nonfiction for adults and children. The company was last based in San Diego, California, with editorial/sales/marketing/rights offices in New York City a ...

, 1959. *:An account of ethical questions.
''The Fate of Man''
New York: G. Braziller, 1961.
''The Shaping of the Modern Mind''
1963. *:An abridged version of his ''Ideas and Men''
''The Americans and the French''
1968.hup.harvard.edu
/ref> *:An attempt to explain the often difficult relations between two longtime allies. Book reviews
"The Future in Retrospect: Spencer's Horrid Vision."
Review of ''The Man Versus the State'' by

Herbert Spencer Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English philosopher, psychologist, biologist, anthropologist, and sociologist famous for his hypothesis of social Darwinism. Spencer originated the expression " survival of the f ...

. ''

'', Vol. 15, No. 4, July 1937, p. 768. .
"The Residue of Pareto."
Review of ''Trattato di Sociologia Generale'' (''The Mind and Society'') by

Vilfredo Pareto Vilfredo Federico Damaso Pareto ( , , , ; born Wilfried Fritz Pareto; 15 July 1848 – 19 August 1923) was an Italians, Italian polymath (civil engineer, sociologist, economist, political scientist, and philosopher). He made several important ...

Arthur Livingston Arthur Livingston (September 30, 1883 in Northbridge, Massachusetts – 1944), was an American professor of Romance languages and literatures, translator, and publisher, who played a significant role in introducing a number of European writers to r ...

, & Andrew Bongiorno. ''

'', Vol. 32, No. 4, July 1954. .
Review of ''The Napoleonic Revolution''
by Robert B. Holtman. ''

'', Vol. 74, No. 2, December 1968, pp. 627–628. .

References

External links

Bibliography
''

''
Brief biography of Brinton at Bartleby.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brinton, Crane 20th-century American historians 20th-century American male writers Revolution theorists Harvard University alumni Harvard University faculty Presidents of the American Historical Association 1898 births 1968 deaths People from Winsted, Connecticut Writers from Cambridge, Massachusetts Historians from Massachusetts American male non-fiction writers Historians from Connecticut American Rhodes Scholars Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters