Mack Walker (June 6, 1929 – February 10, 2021) was an American historian of German intellectual history.

Life and career

Born near Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1929, he had formative experiences when he was stationed with the U.S. military in Bavaria and Württemberg in the early 1950s. He studied at Bowdoin College. He began teaching German history in the 1950s, and had an interest in German intellectual history of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Walker began teaching at

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

in 1974 and retired in June 1999. He published several books on German history, including the influential ''German Home Towns'' (1971), in which he examined the nature of small-town life in

Early Modern The early modern period is a Periodization, historical period that is defined either as part of or as immediately preceding the modern period, with divisions based primarily on the history of Europe and the broader concept of modernity. There i ...

Germany. He was a recipient of a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

and awards from the

National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...

. Walker died from

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever ...

on February 10, 2021, at age 91.

Principle publications

*''German Home Towns: Community, State and General Estate 1648–1871.'' Cornell University Press; Reprint edition (June 18, 1998). *''The Salzburg Transaction: Expulsion and Redemption in Eighteenth Century Germany.'' Cornell University Press; 1 edition (1992). *''Johann Jakob Moser and the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.'' The University of North Carolina Press; 1 edition (January 1, 1981). *''Germany and the Emigration, 1816–1885''. Harvard University Press; 1 edition (1964).

References

1929 births 2021 deaths Bowdoin College alumni Johns Hopkins University faculty 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers Historians of Germany Writers from Springfield, Massachusetts Place of death missing Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in Maryland American male non-fiction writers {{US-historian-stub