Gordon A. Craig
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Gordon Alexander Craig (November 13, 1913, Glasgow – October 30, 2005) was a Scottish-American historian of German, Swiss and of diplomatic history.
In 1925 Craig emigrated with his family to Toronto, Canada, and then to Jersey City in New Jersey. Initially interested in studying the law, Craig switched to History after hearing the historian Walter "Buzzer" Hall lecture at Princeton University. In 1935, Craig visited and lived for several months in Germany, to research a thesis he was writing on the downfall of the Weimar Republic. Craig's 1935 trip marked the beginning of life-long interest with all things German. Craig did not enjoy the atmosphere of Nazi Germany, and throughout his life, Craig sought to find the answer to the question of how a people who, in his opinion, had made a disproportionately large contribution to Western civilization, allowed themselves to became entangled in what Craig saw as the corrupting embrace of Nazism.
He graduated in History from Princeton University and was a Rhodes Scholar at Balliol College, Oxford, between 1936-1938, and served in the US Marine Corps as an Captain and in the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. After 1945, Craig worked as a consultant to the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the State Department, the U.S. Air Force Academy and the Historical Division of the U.S. Marine Corps. He was professor at Princeton University from 1950-61 and at Stanford University from 1961-79. In 1956-1957, Craig taught at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. In addition, Craig often held visiting professorships at the Free University of Berlin; in 1967, Craig was only the professor there to sign a petition asking for an investigation into charges of police brutality towards protesting students. Craig was Chair of the History Department at Stanford in 1972-1975 and 1978-1979. Between 1975-1985, Craig served as the vice-president of the Comité International des Sciences Historiques. In 1979, Craig became an emeritus professor and was awarded the title J. E. Wallace Sterling Professor of Humanities During his time at Stanford, Craig was considered to be a popular and innovative who improved both undergraduate and graduate teaching while remaining well-liked by the students. After his retirement, Craig worked as a book reviewer for the New York Review of Books. Some of his reviews attracted controversy most notably in 1996 when he praised Daniel Goldhagen's book Hitler's Willing Executioners in April of that year and later in September when he argued that David Irving's work was valuable because of what Craig saw as Irving's Devil's Advocate role. Craig argued that Irving was usually wrong, but that by promoting what Craig saw as a twisted and wrong-headed view of history with a great deal of elan, Irving forced other historians to fruitfully examine their beliefs about what is known about the Third Reich.
Craig was formerly President of the American Historical Association. In 1953, together with his friend Felix Gilbert, Craig edited a prosopography of inter-war diplomats entitled The Diplomats, an important source for diplomatic history in the interwar period. Craig followed this book up with studies on the Prussian Army, the Battle of Königgrätz and many aspects of European and German history. Craig was particularly noted for his contribution to the Oxford History of Modern Europe series entitled Germany, 1866-1945 and its companion volume entitled The Germans. The latter was a wide-ranging cultural history that explored aspects of being German in regards to and German attitudes towards such fields as German-Jewish relations, money, students, women, democracy, and so forth. The book was a best-seller in both the United States and Germany and Craig was awarded the Pour le Mérite medal for his book. Increasing interested in cultural history in his later years, Craig subsequently wrote studies of several German writers, most notably Theodor Fontane. In his later years, Craig emerged as a celebrity in the German-speaking world and frequently appeared as a guest on German television talk shows. By his later years, Craig was widely regarded as the doyen of American historians of Germany, and his opinions carried much weight.
Craig saw modern German history as being a struggle between positive as exemplified by the values of humanist intellectuals and negative forces in German life as exemplified by Nazism. In a more broader sense, Craig viewed this conflict as being between enlightened spirit and authoritarian power. Craig was highly critical of those who Nazism as the culmination of German national character while at the same criticizing those argued that Nazi Germany was just an Betriebsunfall (industrial accident) of history. Craig felt that the particular way Otto von Bismarck created the German Empire in 1871 was a tragedy as it entrenched the forces of authoritarianism in German life. Likewise, Craig viewed the autonomous of the German Army as a “State-within-the-State” as highly adverse to the development of democracy.
Craig saw history not as a social science, but rather as a “human discipline”. Craig censured those historians who saw their work as social science and frequently called for historians to return to the methods of former times by seeking to “interconnect” history and literature. Craig was noted for his sparse, highly elegant literary style together with a tendency to keep an ironic distance from his subjects. Craig was very fond of German literature, and praised the novels of Theodor Fontane as the best picture of 19th century Germany, which he considered superior to many works by produced by historians. Craig’s last project, uncompleted at the time of his death concerned a survey of novels set in Berlin (which was Craig’s favorite city) in the 20th century.
Craig died of a heart attack and is survived by his widow Phyllis and three children.
[edit] Work
- Co-edited with Edward Mead Earle and Felix GilbertMakers of Modern Strategy; Military Thought From Machiavelli to Hitler, Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 1943, 1967.
- The Second Chance : America And The Peace, Princeton : Princeton University Press, 1944.
- The Diplomats 1919—1939 co-edited with Felix Gilbert, New York : Atheneum, 1953.
- The Politics of the Prussian Army 1640—1945, New York : Oxford University Press, 1964, 1955.
- From Bismarck to Adenauer: Aspects of German Statecraft, Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 1958.
- The Battle of Königgrätz : Prussia's Victory Over Austria, 1866 Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 1975, 1964.
- War, Politics, And Diplomacy, London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson ,1966.
- World War I, A Turning Point In Modern History : Essays On The Significance Of The War, New York : A.A. Knopf, 1967.
- Europe Since 1914, New York : Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972.
- Europe Since 1815, Hinsdale, Illinois : Dryden Press, 1974.
- Germany, 1866-1945, Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1978.
- The Germans, New York : Putnam, 1981.
- The End Of Prussia, Madison : University of Wisconsin Press, 1984.
- Makers Of Modern Strategy : From Machiavelli To The Nuclear Age, Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 1986 edited by Peter Paret, Gordon Craig and Felix Gilbert.
- The Triumph Of Liberalism : Zürich In The Golden Age, 1830-1869, New York : Collier Books; London : Collier Macmillan, 1990, 1988.
- Force And Statecraft : Diplomatic Problems Of Our Time, New York : Oxford University Press, 1990.
- Geneva, Zurich, Basel : History, Culture & National Identity, Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 1994.
- Co-edited Francis L. Loewenheim The Diplomats, 1939-1979, Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 1994.
- The Politics Of The Unpolitical : German Writers And The Problem Of Power, 1770-1871, New York : Oxford University Press, 1995
- Politics And Culture In Modern Germany, Palo Alto, California : Society for the Promotion of Science and Scholarship, 1999.
- Theodor Fontane : Literature and History in the Bismarck Reich, New York : Oxford University Press, 1999 ISBN 0-19-512837-0
