Mott T. Greene (born 1945) is 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 st ...

of science, and is John B. Magee Professor of Science and Values Emeritus, at the

University of Puget Sound The University of Puget Sound (UPS or Puget Sound) is a private university in Tacoma, Washington. The university draws approximately 2,600 students from 44 states and 16 countries. It offers 1,200 courses each year in more than 50 traditional an ...

, from which he retired in 2012. He is currently Affiliate Professor of Earth & Space Sciences at the University of Washington.

Life

After attending the Storm King School in Cornwall-on-Hudson, N.Y. Greene attended Columbia College where he majored in Sociology and Asian Studies, and graduated in 1967. He then went on to graduate study in Japanese language and literature in the Department of East Asian Languages at Columbia. In August 1968 he married Abby Terris; they separated amicably in 1976 and divorced in 1977. While on a National Defense Education Act fellowship in 1968 to study Japanese at Columbia, Greene, an outspoken opponent of the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by 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 Vietnam a ...

, was drafted out of graduate school in November 1968. He refused induction into the US Army, and after registering and being certified as a conscientious objector served two years of alternative service at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center between 1969 and 1971. On release from alternative service he enrolled in 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 Seattl ...

graduate program in History, completing a PhD in 1978 in History of Science, with minor fields in European Intellectual History, History of Ancient Greece, and History of Japan. Later that year he married Josephine Leffingwell, a Seattle actress and mountaineering instructor. They have one daughter, Annie, born in 1983. Greene lectured at

Oregon State University Oregon State University (OSU) is a public land-grant, research university in Corvallis, Oregon. OSU offers more than 200 undergraduate-degree programs along with a variety of graduate and doctoral degrees. It has the 10th largest engineering c ...

. He is a member of the

History of Science Society The History of Science Society (HSS) is the primary professional society for the academic study of the history of science. It was founded in 1924 by George Sarton, David Eugene Smith, and Lawrence Joseph Henderson, primarily to support the publi ...

Awards

* 1983 MacArthur Fellows Program * 1996 Carnegie Foundation Professor of the Year, Washington State * 2016 Mary C. Rabbitt Award in the History and Philosophy of Geology,

Geological Society of America The Geological Society of America (GSA) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement of the geosciences. History The society was founded in Ithaca, New York, in 1888 by Alexander Winchell, John J. Stevenson, Charles H. Hitch ...

* 2017

Sue Tyler Friedman Medal The Sue Tyler Friedman Medal is awarded by the Geological Society of London for work on the history of geology. Established in 1987, it is named after the wife of academic journal editor and publisher Gerald M. Friedman, and was funded by a gift t ...

of the Geological Society * 2017 Named a Fellow of the

Works

''Alfred Wegener. Science, Exploration, and the Theory of Continental Drift''
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015, * ''Natural knowledge in preclassical antiquity'' Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992, * ''Geology in the nineteenth century: changing views of a changing world'', Cornell University Press, 1982,

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Greene, Mott T. 21st-century American historians American male non-fiction writers Columbia College (New York) alumni Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni University of Washington College of Arts and Sciences alumni University of Puget Sound faculty Living people MacArthur Fellows 1945 births 21st-century American male writers Storm King School alumni