Professor Felix Paul Alexander Wilhelm Gilbert

Felix Gilbert was one of my history professors at Bryn Mawr College in the 1950s and an inspirational teacher. His brilliance, eloquence, and modesty in teaching about about the the influence of French Enlightenment thought on George Washington's farewell speech or German historiography outshone his heavily accented, halting speaking style and tendency to insert "ers" and "ums" between every word.

Ann L. Fuller

NYTimes - 2/16/1991

Felix Gilbert, a noted historian, educator and author who wrote on Renaissance Italy, 18th-century North America and Europe of the last century, died on Thursday at his home in Princeton, N.J. He was 85 years old.

He died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known as Lou Gehrig's disease, said a spokeswoman at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where Dr. Gilbert was a professor emeritus in the School of Historical Studies.

The professor, a modest, at times whimsical man, was a native of Germany. He came to this country in 1936 and taught history at Bryn Mawr College from 1946 to 1962 and at the Institute for Advanced Study from 1962 to 1975, when he retired.

Dr. Gilbert wrote, edited or co-edited more than a dozen scholarly books. He was a visiting professor at leading American universities and was awarded many honorary doctorates in this country and Europe. Studied Washington's Farewell

One of his books, "To the Farewell Address: Ideas of Early American Foreign Policy," received a Bancroft Prize in 1962. The book explored the background and preparation of George Washington's influential address, which incorporated suggestions by Alexander Hamilton.

In "Machiavelli and Guicciardini: Politics and History in 16th-Century Florence," Dr. Gilbert examined the origins of modern political thought in the Italian Renaissance by focusing on its two primary theoreticians.

Reviewing that 1965 book, Herbert Butterfield wrote in The New York Times that Dr. Gilbert had "always been exciting in his hunches and insights; even where these are risky, they are stimulating, and they promote the cause of truth."

F. A. Yates, in The New York Review of Books, praised the author's "years of original research" and said the study "should be widely read and used as the authoritative treatment of the subject by an expert."

Other books by Dr. Gilbert include "The End of the European Era" (1970), "History: Choice and Commitment" (1977), "The Pope, His Banker and Venice" (1980), "A European Past: Memoirs 1905-1945" (1988) and "History: Politics or Culture? Reflections on Ranke and Burckhardt" (1990). History's Virtues 'Incarnated'

The American Historical Association honored Professor Gilbert in 1985 with its first award for scholarly distinction. The citation declared that "few among our number have so completely incarnated the virtues of history as a vocation" as he. It also hailed him as the "master of a variety of fields" and praised his works as "models of historical scholarship, rich in empirical specificity, yet resonant with a wider significance for understanding history as a whole."

Several colleagues cited Dr. Gilbert's mastery of a wide range of subjects, his astute appraisals of people and events and the openness to young people and new ideas that made him a master and mentor to several generations of historians in this country and abroad.

Dr. Gilbert was born on May 21, 1905, in Baden-Baden, Germany, into an upper middle-class family prominent in the professions and business. He studied at the University of Heidelberg and earned a doctorate at the University of Berlin in 1931.

Dr. Gilbert was working in Italy when the Nazis seized power in Berlin in 1933, and he came to the United States by way of London. In World War II he was a research analyst for the Office of Strategic Services and the State Department. After the war, he returned briefly to Germany to help chart the reopening of its universities and then joined the faculty at Bryn Mawr.

He is survived by his wife of 35 years, the former Mary Raymond.

Felix Gilbert (* 21. Mai 1905 in Baden-Baden; † 14. Februar 1991 in Princeton) war ein deutsch-amerikanischer Historiker. Der Sohn von William Heinrich Gilbert (1860–1906), einem englischen Augenarzt, und Cécile Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1874–1923), einer Tochter des Chemikers Paul Mendelssohn Bartholdy, wuchs in Berlin auf und besuchte dort ein humanistisches Gymnasium. Nach dem Abitur studierte er Geschichte und Philosophie an den Universitäten Heidelberg, München und Berlin. 1931 promovierte er bei Friedrich Meinecke in Berlin mit einer Arbeit über den Historiker Johann Gustav Droysen. Aufgrund seiner teilweisen jüdischen Abstammung bedroht, musste Gilbert während des Nationalsozialismus Deutschland verlassen. Er ging 1936 über England in die USA. 1943 erhielt er die amerikanische Staatsbürgerschaft und trat in das State Department als Research Analyst des Office of Strategic Services ein. Mit der amerikanischen Armee kam er nach Europa und wieder nach Deutschland. Nach seiner Ausmusterung wurde er 1946 Lecturer und bald Professor am Bryn Mawr College. 1962 erhielt er eine Professur an der School of Historical studies des Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, wo er bis zu seiner Emeritierung 1975 lehrte. Im Zentrum seiner Forschungen standen Arbeiten zur italienischen, zur Florentiner Renaissance, und insbesondere die Personen Niccolò Machiavelli und Francesco Guicciardini. Neben der Renaissance verfasste Gilbert Arbeiten zur Ideengeschichte und zur Methodenlehre, zur Geschichte der Geschichtsschreibung und zur Neuesten Geschichte.