biography
| name: |
Motley, John Lothrop
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1814–77)
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| biography:
| Historian and diplomat, born in Dorchester (now part of Boston), Massachusetts, USA. The son of a wealthy family, he graduated from Harvard (1831), then spent several years in Germany, Britain, and elsewhere in Europe, where he got to know the intellectual and political elite, including Otto von Bismarck. Back in Boston (1835) he married and decided on a literary career. His first two novels were not successful, so after several months as secretary to the US embassy in St Petersburg, Russia (1841), he decided to devote himself to writing history, specifically, the history of the Netherlands in the 16th-c and 17th-c, and published the work for which he remains best known, The Rise of the Dutch Republic (1856). He served as ambassador to Austria (1861–7) and Britain (1869–70) while publishing The History of the United Netherlands, 1584–1609 (4 vols, 1860–7), but died before he could bring his history to its climax in 1648. Although composed in an engaging style, his history has been regarded by most scholars as a highly personal interpretation of events. |
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