biography
| name: |
McNeill, William H(ardy)
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1917– )
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| biography:
| Historian, born in Vancouver, Canada. He studied at the University of Chicago (1938 BA; 1939 MA) and at Cornell (1947 PhD), and taught his entire career at the University of Chicago (1947), except for occasional visiting professorships elsewhere. Running counter to the trend of his contemporary academics, who tended to specialize in ever smaller periods and topics, he took on a wide variety of subjects in books including Venice: The Hinge of Europe, 1081–1797 and The Metamorphosis of Greece since World War 2 (1978). Beyond such studies he became one of the few modern historians since Arnold Toynbee who dared to take on the world's history, and in books such as The Rise and Fall of the West: A History of the Human Community (1963; National Book Award, 1964) and The Human Condition: An Ecological and Historical View (1980), he recognized the ambiguity of human experience while expressing the hope that historical studies might enhance practical wisdom. He also served as editor-in-chief of Readings in World History (10 vols, 1968–73). |
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