Felix Gilbert (May 21, 1905 – February 14, 1991) was a German-born American historian of early modern and modern

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

. Gilbert was born in

Baden-Baden Baden-Baden () is a spa town in the states of Germany, state of Baden-Württemberg, south-western Germany, at the north-western border of the Black Forest mountain range on the small river Oos (river), Oos, ten kilometres (six miles) east of the ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

, to a middle-class Jewish family, and part of the Mendelssohn Bartholdy clan. In the latter half of the 1920s, Gilbert studied under

Friedrich Meinecke Friedrich Meinecke (October 20, 1862 – February 6, 1954) was a German historian with national liberal and antisemitic views who supported the Nazi invasion of Poland. As a representative of an older tradition, he criticized the Nazi regime ...

at the

University of Berlin The Humboldt University of Berlin (, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin, Germany. The university was established by Frederick William III on the initiative of Wilhelm von Humbol ...

. Gilbert's area of expertise was the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

, especially the diplomatic history of the period He was a fellow of the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry located in Princeton, New Jersey. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholars, including Albert Ein ...

in Princeton from 1962 to 1975, and maintained an active involvement as an emeritus faculty member until his death in 1991. He was elected to the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

in 1963 and the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...

in 1969. The main reading room of the

German Historical Institute The German Historical Institutes (GHI), , (''DHI'') are six independent academic research institutes of the Max Weber Foundation dedicated to the study of historical relations between Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germ ...

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

is named in his honor.

Work

*''Johann Gustav Droysen und die preussisch-deutsche Frage'', diss., Berlin 1931. *''Makers of Modern Strategy: Military Thought from Machiavelli to Hitler'', (co-edited with Edward M. Earle and Gordon A. Craig) Princeton, N.J. 1943; New York 1966, 1971. *"Bernardo Rucellai and the Orti Oricellari: A Study on the Origin of Modern Political Thought". In: ''Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes'', Volume 12, 1949, p. 101–131. *''The Diplomats, 1919–1939'', (co-edited with Gordon A. Craig), Princeton, N.J. 1954; New York 1963. *''To the Farewell Address: Ideas of Early American Foreign Policy'', Princeton, N.J. 1961. (winner of the 1962 Bancroft Prize). *''Machiavelli and Guicciardini: Politics and History in Sixteenth-Century Florence'', Princeton, N.J. 1965. * *''History: Choice and Commitment'', Cambridge, Massachusetts 1977. *''The Pope, His Banker, and Venice'', Cambridge, Massachusetts 1981. *''A European Past: Memoirs, 1905-1945'', 1988. *''History: Politics or Culture? Reflections on Ranke and Burckhardt'', 1990.

Endnotes

1905 births 1991 deaths American people of German-Jewish descent German emigrants to the United States Jewish American historians 20th-century American historians American male non-fiction writers Institute for Advanced Study faculty People from Baden-Baden Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class) Bancroft Prize winners 20th-century American male writers Corresponding fellows of the British Academy 20th-century American Jews {{US-historian-stub Members of the American Philosophical Society

Work

Further reading

Endnotes