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 censu ...
– February 10, 1998 in
Madison, Wisconsin
Madison is the county seat of Dane County, Wisconsin, Dane County and the capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census the population was 269,840, making it the second-largest city in Wisconsin b ...
) 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
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 censu ...
, but most of his productive years had been lived in
Madison, Wisconsin
Madison is the county seat of Dane County, Wisconsin, Dane County and the capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census the population was 269,840, making it the second-largest city in Wisconsin b ...
.
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 ye ...
, 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. ...
; 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 a ...
) and
Balliol College, Oxford
Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the ...
, after which he taught at
Phillips Academy
("Not for Self") la, Finis Origine Pendet ("The End Depends Upon the Beginning") Youth From Every Quarter Knowledge and Goodness
, address = 180 Main Street
, city = Andover
, state = M ...
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 States ...
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; p ...
was a student of MacKendrick's while he taught at
Phillips Academy
("Not for Self") la, Finis Origine Pendet ("The End Depends Upon the Beginning") Youth From Every Quarter Knowledge and Goodness
, address = 180 Main Street
, city = Andover
, state = M ...
. 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. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which ...
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
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 ...
,'' 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 lett ...
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
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesu ...
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 Çan ...
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
Hellenic is a synonym for Greek. It means either:
*of or pertaining to the Hellenic Republic (modern Greece) or Greek people (Hellenes, el, Έλληνες) and culture
*of or pertaining to ancient Greece, ancient Greek people, culture and civiliz ...
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 decipherm ...
' 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 Medite ...
.
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
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...
,
List of 1957 Guggenheim Fellows
1957–58
*Consultant, Greek archeology, National Broadcasting Company
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are ...
*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 A ...
, 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