Mack Walker


Mack Walker 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 in 1974 and retired in June 1999. He published several books on German history, including the influential German Home Towns, in which he examined the nature of small-town life in Early Modern Germany. He was a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Walker died from COVID-19 on February 10, 2021, at age 91.

Principle publications