Robert Green McCloskey (18 January 1916 – 4 August 1969) was an American political historian. McCloskey completed his doctorate in political science at

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 high ...

, and joined the faculty in 1948. He was secretary of the Littauer Center of Public Administration until 1954, when Arthur Maass took the position. McCloskey was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1959. In 1966, McCloskey was named Jonathan Trumbull Professor of American History and Government at Harvard. The position had been vacant since 1963, upon the death of V. O. Key. McCloskey died on 4 August 1969. McCloskey's book ''American Conservatism in the Age of Enterprise'' was first published in 1951. The book was based on his doctoral dissertation, and explored conservatism in the United States from the Reconstruction era to 1910, by considering the publications of

William Graham Sumner William Graham Sumner (October 30, 1840 – April 12, 1910) was an American clergyman, social scientist, and classical liberal. He taught social sciences at Yale University—where he held the nation's first professorship in sociology—and be ...

Stephen Johnson Field Stephen Johnson Field (November 4, 1816 – April 9, 1899) was an American jurist. He was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from May 20, 1863, to December 1, 1897, the second longest tenure of any justice. Prior to this a ...

, and

Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie (, ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans i ...

. The first edition of ''The American Supreme Court'' was published in 1961 as part of a series, and described as "lucidly written, well-reasoned, and concise" by Robert J. Harris, and "one of the best of a rare breed" by Paul W. Fox. In 2011, Keith E. Whittington called it "the classic one-volume history of the Court." Following his death, a student of McCloskey's,

Sanford Levinson Sanford Victor Levinson (born June 17, 1941) is an American legal scholar known for his writings on constitutional law. A professor at the University of Texas Law School, Levinson is notable for his criticism of the United States Constitution as ...

, continued updating ''The American Supreme Court''. A third book by McCloskey, titled ''The Modern Supreme Court'', was posthumously published in 1974.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McCloskey, Robert Green 1916 births 1968 deaths 20th-century American historians American male non-fiction writers 20th-century American male writers Harvard University alumni Harvard University faculty American political scientists Political historians 20th-century political scientists