Carl Emil Schorske (March 15, 1915 – September 13, 2015), known professionally as Carl E. Schorske, was an American cultural historian and professor emeritus at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

. In 1981 he won the

Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction The Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are awarded annually for the "Letters, Drama, and Music" category. The award is given to a nonfiction book written by an American author and published duri ...

for his book '' Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture'' (1980), which remains significant to modern European intellectual history. He was a recipient of the first year of MacArthur Fellows Program awards in 1981 and made an honorary citizen of Vienna in 2012.

Biography

Born in

the Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, to Theodore Schorske and Gertrude Goldsmith, Schorske received his B.A. from Columbia in 1936 and a Ph.D. from Harvard. He served in the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the CIA, during World War II, as chief of political intelligence for Western Europe. His first book, ''German Social Democracy'', published by Harvard University Press in 1955, describes the schism of the Social Democratic Party of Germany into a reformist/constitutionalist right faction and a revolutionary oppositionist left faction during the years 1905–1917. Following his war-time service, Schorske taught at

Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a private liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church and with the support of prominent residents of Middletown, the col ...

(1946–1960), the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...

(1960–1969), and

(1969 until his retirement in 1980), where he was Dayton-Stockton Professor of History. Professor Schorske was named by ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

'' magazine as one of the nation's ten top academic leaders. In 1987 he delivered the

Charles Homer Haskins Charles Homer Haskins (December 21, 1870 – May 14, 1937) was a history professor at Harvard University. He was an American historian of the Middle Ages, and advisor to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. He is widely recognized as the first academic ...

Lecture. In 1998 Schorske published ''Thinking With History: Explorations in the Passage to Modernism'' (

Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financia ...

), a collection of essays on Viennese and general history. He turned 100 in March 2015 and died in September at a retirement community in Hightstown, New Jersey.

Decorations and awards

In 2004 Schorske received the Ludwig Wittgenstein Prize of the Austrian Research Association (''Österreichische Forschungsgemeinschaft''). He was a ''Corresponding Member'' of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. On 25 April 2012 Schorske was made an honorary citizen of Vienna during a ceremony attended by his wife, Elizabeth Rorke, his granddaughter, Carina del Valle Schorske, and the mayor of Vienna, Dr

Michael Häupl Michael Häupl (born 14 September 1949) is an Austrian politician. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Austria, he served as mayor and governor of Vienna from 7 November 1994 until 24 May 2018. Early life and education Häupl was born in ...

. In 1981 he was a

MacArthur Fellow The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 indi ...

. * 1985: City of Vienna Prize for Journalism * 1996:

Grand Silver Medal for Services to the Republic of Austria The Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria (german: Ehrenzeichen für Verdienste um die Republik Österreich) is a state decoration of the Republic of Austria. It is divided into 15 classes and is the highest award in the A ...

* 2007: Victor-Adler State Prize for History of Social Movements *

Austrian Decoration for Science and Art The Austrian Decoration for Science and Art (german: Österreichisches Ehrenzeichen für Wissenschaft und Kunst) is a state decoration of the Republic of Austria and forms part of the Austrian national honours system. History The "Austrian ...

Works

* ''German Social Democracy, 1905–1917: The Development of the Great Schism'' (1955,

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retir ...

) * ''Thinking With History: Explorations in the Passage to Modernism'' (1998,

) * '' Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture'' (1980) * "A life of learning" Charles Homer Haskins lecture, April 23, 1987 * ''Budapest and New York: Studies in Metropolitan Transformation, 1870–1930'', with Thomas Bender (1994, Russell Sage Foundation)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schorske, Carl 1915 births 2015 deaths People from Scarsdale, New York Harvard University alumni MacArthur Fellows People of the Office of Strategic Services Princeton University faculty Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction winners Wesleyan University faculty Columbia College (New York) alumni American people of German descent Members of the Austrian Academy of Sciences Recipients of the Grand Decoration for Services to the Republic of Austria Recipients of the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art 20th-century American historians American male non-fiction writers Scarsdale High School alumni American centenarians Men centenarians Historians from New York (state) 20th-century American male writers