Robert Brett Westbrook (born September 6, 1950, in

Austin, Minnesota Austin is a city in, and the county seat of, Mower County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 26,174 at the 2020 census. The town was originally settled along the Cedar River and has two artificial lakes, East Side Lake and Mill Po ...

) 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 ...

and Joseph F. Cunningham Professor of History at the

University of Rochester The University of Rochester (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private university, private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants Undergraduate education, undergraduate and graduate degrees, including Doctorate, do ...

Life

Westbrook graduated from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

in 1972, summa cum laude,

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal ...

, and with exceptional distinction in history. He received his PhD from Stanford University in 1981. Westbrook has taught at Scripps College, and Yale University. His first book, a reformulation and expansion of his thesis, '' John Dewey and American Democracy'', is considered the best intellectual biography of the influential pragmatist philosopher. Westbrook has been described by

Cheryl Misak Cheryl J. Misak is a Canadian philosopher who works in pragmatism, the history of analytic philosophy, and bioethics. She is a University Professor at the University of Toronto, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and a recipient of a Gugg ...

as "our best intellectual historian of pragmatism." 1]

Personal life

Westbrook is married to Shamra Westbrook.

Awards

*1993

Merle Curti Award The Merle Curti Award is awarded annually by the Organization of American Historians for the best book in American social and/or American intellectual history. It is named in honor of Merle Curti Merle Eugene Curti (September 15, 1897 – March ...

Works

* "An Innocent Abroad? John Dewey and International Politics", ''Ethics & International Affairs'', Volume 7 (1993) * * ''Why We Fought: Forging American Obligations in World War II'', June 2004, HarperCollins, * (reprint Cornell University Press, 1993, )

Editor

References

External links

CV
People from Austin, Minnesota Yale College alumni Stanford University alumni Scripps College faculty Yale University faculty University of Rochester faculty Living people 1950 births 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers Historians from Minnesota Historians from California American male non-fiction writers {{US-historian-stub