Donald Kagan (; May 1, 1932August 6, 2021) was a Lithuanian-born 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 st ...

and

classicist Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Cla ...

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...

specializing in

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 ...

, notable for his four-volume history of the

Peloponnesian War The Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC) was an ancient Greek war fought between Athens and Sparta and their respective allies for the hegemony of the Greek world. The war remained undecided for a long time until the decisive intervention of ...

. He formerly taught in the Department of History at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

. Kagan was considered among the foremost American scholars of

Greek history The history of Greece encompasses the history of the territory of the modern nation-state of Greece as well as that of the Greek people and the areas they inhabited and ruled historically. The scope of Greek habitation and rule has varied throu ...

Early life and education

Kagan was born in

Kuršėnai Kuršėnai (; Samogitian: ''Koršienā''; yi, קורשאַן ''Kurshon''; german: Kurschenen; pl, Kurszany; lv, Kuršēni) is the twenty-fifth largest city in Lithuania. According to the 2020 estimate, it had 10,829 residents. History The tow ...

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

, on May 1, 1932. His father, Shmuel, died before Kagan turned two years old, and his mother, Leah (Benjamin), consequently emigrated to the United States with Kagan and his sister. He grew up in the Brownsville section of

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. He attended Thomas Jefferson High School, where he played

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...

, before becoming the first person in his family to go to college. He graduated from

Brooklyn College , mottoeng = Nothing without great effort , established = , parent = CUNY , type = Public university , endowment = $98.0 million (2019) , budget = $123.96 m ...

in 1954, received an MA in

classics Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

from

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

in 1955, and a PhD in history from the

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best pub ...

in 1958.

Career

Once a liberal Democrat, Kagan changed his views around 1969. According to Jim Lobe, cited by Craig Unger, Kagan's turn away from liberalism occurred in 1969 when Cornell University was pressured into starting a Black Studies program by gun-wielding students seizing the Willard Straight Hall: "Watching administrators demonstrate all the courage of

Neville Chamberlain Arthur Neville Chamberlain (; 18 March 18699 November 1940) was a British politician of the Conservative Party who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. He is best known for his foreign policy of appeaseme ...

had a great impact on me, and I became much more conservative." He was one of the original signers of the 1997 Statement of Principles by the

neoconservative Neoconservatism is a political movement that began in the United States during the 1960s among liberal hawks who became disenchanted with the increasingly pacifist foreign policy of the Democratic Party and with the growing New Left and count ...

think tank

Project for the New American Century The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) was a neoconservativeRobert The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of ''Hrōþ, Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory ...

. On the eve of the 2000 presidential elections, Kagan and his other son,

Frederick Frederick may refer to: People * Frederick (given name), the name Nobility Anhalt-Harzgerode *Frederick, Prince of Anhalt-Harzgerode (1613–1670) Austria * Frederick I, Duke of Austria (Babenberg), Duke of Austria from 1195 to 1198 * Frederick ...

, published '' While America Sleeps'', a call to increase defense spending. Known for his prolific research on the

; Kagan is also famous for his work ''On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace'', a comparative history examining four major conflicts (the Peloponnesian War,

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, the

Second Punic War The Second Punic War (218 to 201 BC) was the second of three wars fought between Carthage and Rome, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the 3rd century BC. For 17 years the two states struggled for supremacy, primarily in Ital ...

, and

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 World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

) and one non-conflict (the

Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis (of 1962) ( es, Crisis de Octubre) in Cuba, the Caribbean Crisis () in Russia, or the Missile Scare, was a 35-day (16 October – 20 November 1962) confrontation between the United S ...

) with the purpose of identifying how and why wars do or do not begin. Remarking in 2015 on the work, Kagan summarized the causes of war by quoting

Thucydides Thucydides (; grc, , }; BC) was an Athenian historian and general. His '' History of the Peloponnesian War'' recounts the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of " scienti ...

: "You know, Thucydides has this great insight. I wish I could get people to pay attention – he has one of his speakers at the beginning of the war say, 'Why do people go to war? Out of fear, honor, and interest.' Well, everybody knows interest, and fear is very credible. Nobody takes honor seriously." Kagan believes honor – better understood as "prestige" – was crucial in beginning World War I, for example. The

National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...

(NEH) awarded Kagan the

National Humanities Medal The National Humanities Medal is an American award that annually recognizes several individuals, groups, or institutions for work that has "deepened the nation's understanding of the humanities, broadened our citizens' engagement with the huma ...

in 2002, and selected him to deliver the 2005

Jefferson Lecture The Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities is an honorary lecture series established in 1972 by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). According to the NEH, the Lecture is "the highest honor the federal government confers for distinguished ...

. Kagan titled his lecture "In Defense of History"; he argued that history is of primary importance in the study of the humanities. In his ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'' review,

George Steiner Francis George Steiner, FBA (April 23, 1929 – February 3, 2020) was a Franco-American literary critic, essayist, philosopher, novelist, and educator. He wrote extensively about the relationship between language, literature and society, and the ...

said of Kagan's four-volume history of the Peloponnesian War: "The temptation to acclaim Kagan's four volumes as the foremost work of history produced in North America in this century is vivid." Until his retirement in 2013, Kagan was

Sterling Professor Sterling Professor, the highest academic rank at Yale University, is awarded to a tenured faculty member considered the best in his or her field. It is akin to the rank of university professor at other universities. The appointment, made by the ...

of Classics and History at

. His "The Origins of War" was one of Yale's most popular courses for twenty-five years, and was the basis of a book he published in 1995. Over an even longer timespan he taught "Introduction to Ancient Greek History", and upper level History and Classical Civilization seminars focusing on topics from

to the Lacedaimonian hegemony.

Personal life and family

Kagan married Myrna Dabrusky in 1954. They met while studying at Thomas Jefferson High School together, and remained married for 62 years until her death in 2017. Together, they had two children:

Robert The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of ''Hrōþ, Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory ...

and

. Kagan died on August 6, 2021, at a retirement home in Washington, D.C. He was 89 years old.

Positions held

* 1987–1988 Acting Director of Athletics, Yale University * 1989–1992 Dean, Yale College

Works

* Kagan, Donald. (1965). ''The Great Dialogue: A History of Greek Political Thought from Homer to Polybius''. New York: Free Press. * Kagan, Donald. (1969). ''The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War''. Ithaca:

Cornell University Press The Cornell University Press is the university press of Cornell University; currently housed in Sage House, the former residence of Henry William Sage. It was first established in 1869, making it the first university publishing enterprise in ...

. . * Kagan, Donald. (1974). ''The Archidamian War''. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. . * Kagan, Donald. (1981). ''The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition''. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. . * Kagan, Donald. (1987). ''The Fall of the Athenian Empire''. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. * Kagan, Donald. (1991). ''Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy.'' New York: The Free Press. . * Kagan, Donald. (1995). ''On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace''. New York: Doubleday. . * Kagan, Donald and Kagan, Frederick. (2000). '' While America Sleeps''. New York: St. Martin's Press. . * Kagan, Donald, Craig, Albert M., Graham, William A., Ozment, Steven, and Turner, Frank M. (2000). ''The Heritage of World Civilizations''. * Kagan, Donald, Ozment, Steven, and Turner, Frank M. (2003). '' The Western Heritage''. New York: Prentice Hall. . * Kagan, Donald. (2003). ''The Peloponnesian War''. New York: Viking Press. . * Kagan, Donald. (2009). ''Thucydides: The Reinvention of History''. New York: Viking Press. . * Kagan, Donald. (2013). ''Men of Bronze: Hoplite Warfare in Ancient Greece''. Princeton University Press.

References

External links

Kagan Classics faculty page at Yale

Introduction to Ancient Greek History
��video course with Prof. Donald Kagan from Open Yale Courses (click the "Sessions" tab to access the videos
archive
*

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kagan, Donald 1932 births 2021 deaths 20th-century American historians 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers American classical scholars American male non-fiction writers American military historians American people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent Brooklyn College alumni Brown University alumni Classical scholars of Yale University Connecticut Republicans Cornell University Department of History faculty Historians from Connecticut Historians from New York (state) Hudson Institute Jewish American historians Lithuanian emigrants to the United States National Humanities Medal recipients Ohio State University alumni People from Brownsville, Brooklyn People from Kuršėnai People from North Haven, Connecticut Scholars of ancient Greek history Writers from New Haven, Connecticut Yale Sterling Professors 21st-century American Jews