Paul Lachlan MacKendrick (February 11, 1914 in

Taunton, Massachusetts Taunton is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the seat of Bristol County. Taunton is situated on the Taunton River which winds its way through the city on its way to Mount Hope Bay, to the south. At the 2020 cen ...

– February 10, 1998 in

Madison, Wisconsin Madison is the county seat of Dane County and the capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census the population was 269,840, making it the second-largest city in Wisconsin by population, after Milwaukee, and the 80th-lar ...

) was an American

classicist Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

, author, and teacher.

Biography

MacKendrick was born in

, but most of his productive years had been lived in

. MacKendrick was educated 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 ...

(1934

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

, summa cum laude; 1937

M.A. A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

; 1938

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

) and Balliol College, Oxford, after which he taught at Phillips Academy for some years. Future

United States President The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United Stat ...

George H. W. Bush was a student of MacKendrick's while he taught at Phillips Academy. He joined the

U.S. Naval Reserve The United States Navy Reserve (USNR), known as the United States Naval Reserve from 1915 to 2005, is the Reserve Component (RC) of the United States Navy. Members of the Navy Reserve, called Reservists, are categorized as being in either the Se ...

and served from 1941–45. He taught at Harvard in 1946 and then moved to

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United Stat ...

as Assistant Professor of Classics where he taught for six years. MacKendrick was named a Professor of Classics in 1952 and in 1975, the

Lily Ross Taylor Lily Ross Taylor (born August 12, 1886, in Auburn, Alabama - died November 18, 1969, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania) was an American academic and author, who in 1917 became the first female Fellow of the American Academy in Rome. Biography Born in ...

Professor of Classics. In all, he taught at the University of Wisconsin from 1946 to 1984. In 1952, he worked with Herbert M. Howe on the publication of '' Classics in Translation,'' an anthology of selections by

ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

and

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

writers. In 1958, two books followed: ''The Ancient World'', co-authored with Vincent M. Scramuzza and ''The Roman Mind At Work.'' He is most widely known for a series of books that utilise the discoveries of archeology to reconstruct the histories of particular cultures or civilizations. The first of these, ''The Mute Stones Speak,'' surveys the cultures of the Italian peninsula from prehistoric times, with emphasis on the Romans, to the adoption of

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

as the official religion of the empire in 324 A.D. ''The Greek Stones Speak'' followed in 1962. Starting with

Troy Troy ( el, Τροία and Latin: Troia, Hittite: 𒋫𒊒𒄿𒊭 ''Truwiša'') or Ilion ( el, Ίλιον and Latin: Ilium, Hittite: 𒃾𒇻𒊭 ''Wiluša'') was an ancient city located at Hisarlik in present-day Turkey, south-west of Ç ...

and

Heinrich Schliemann Johann Ludwig Heinrich Julius Schliemann (; 6 January 1822 – 26 December 1890) was a German businessman and pioneer in the field of archaeology. He was an advocate of the historicity of places mentioned in the works of Homer and an archaeolog ...

's excavations, the reader is told of excavations of major centers of the Hellenic world, including the story of

Michael Ventris Michael George Francis Ventris, (; 12 July 1922 – 6 September 1956) was an English architect, classicist and philologist who deciphered Linear B, the ancient Mycenaean Greek script. A student of languages, Ventris had pursued deciphermen ...

' decipherment of Linear B. Several additional titles appeared in this series, and by 1980 it had surveyed regions and cultures of almost the entire area of the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediter ...

. Professor MacKendrick had retired from teaching in 1984.

Honors

Fulbright Fellowship The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

, 1950–51 * Guggenheim Fellowship,List of 1957 Guggenheim Fellows
1957–58 *Consultant, Greek archeology, National Broadcasting Company *Consultant, Roman archeology, Time-Life, Inc.

Awards

1984 Notable Wisconsin Authors
- Wisconsin Library Association Literary Awards Committee

Selected books

*Classics In Translation (with Herbert M. Howe), 1952 *The Ancient World (with Vincent M. Scramuzza), 1958 *''The Roman Mind At Work'', 1958 *''The Mute Stones Speak'', 1960 *''The Greek Stones Speak'', 1962 *''The Iberian Stones Speak'', 1969 *''The Athenian Aristocracy, 339-31 B.C.'', 1969 *''Romans On The Rhine'', 1970 *''Roman France'', 1972 *''The Dacian Stones Speak'', Chapel Hill:

University of North Carolina Press The University of North Carolina Press (or UNC Press), founded in 1922, is a university press that is part of the University of North Carolina. It was the first university press founded in the Southern United States. It is a member of the As ...

, 1975. *''The North African Stones Speak'', 1980

Notes

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Mackendrick, Paul Historians of antiquity University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty Harvard University alumni Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford United States Navy personnel of World War II Clan Henderson People from Taunton, Massachusetts Writers from Wisconsin 1914 births 1998 deaths 20th-century American historians American male non-fiction writers Historians from Massachusetts United States Navy reservists 20th-century American male writers