Peter Gay

Peter Gay (June 20, 1923-), a Jewish American historian of the social history of ideas, born in Berlin as Peter Joachim Frohlich . After witnessing Kristallnacht in 1938, he fled Nazi Germany in 1939. His family initially booked passage on the SS St. Louis (whose passengers were eventually denied visas) but fortuitously changed their booking to an earlier voyage to the U.S. He came to the United States in 1941 and took American citzenship in 1946. Gay received his education at the University of Denver, where he was awarded a BA in 1946 and at Columbia University where he awarded a MA in 1947 and PhD in 1951. Gay worked as political science professor at Columbia between 1948-1955 and as history professor from 1955-1969. He taught at Yale from 1969 until his retirement in 1993. He married Ruth Slokin in 1959 and has adopted three step-children.

Related Topics:
June 20 - 1923 - Jew - American - Social history - Berlin - Kristallnacht - SS St. Louis

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Gay's first interest was in intellectual history. His 1959 book, Voltaire's Politics examined Voltaire as a politician and the how his politics influnced the ideas that Voltaire championed in his writings. Gay followed the success of Voltaire's Politics with a wider history of the Enlightenment, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, for which he was honoured with a National Book prize and the Mecher Book prize. Gay's 1968 book, Weimar Culture was considered at the time to be a ground-breaking cultural history of the Weimar Republic. Starting in 1978 with Freud, Jews and Other Germans, a examination of the impact of Freudian ideas on German culture, Gay has became increasing interested in psychology. Many of his works focused on the social impact of psychoanalysis. Gay is a leading champion of psychoanalytic history, and is a follower of Sigmund Freud.

Related Topics:
Intellectual history - Voltaire - Enlightenment - Cultural history - Weimar Republic - Psychoanalysis - Sigmund Freud

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Educated at the Goethe Gymnasium. Taught at Columbia University & at Yale University.

Related Topics:
Columbia University - Yale University

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Sterling Professor Emeritus of History at Yale University (retired 1993)

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