Sidney Bradshaw Fay
Sidney Bradshaw Fay was an American historian whose examination of the causes of World War I, The Origins of the World War , remains a classic study. In this book, which won him the 1928 George Louis Beer Prize of the American Historical Association, Fay argued that Germany was too readily blamed for the war and that a great deal of the responsibility instead rested with the Allies, especially Russia and Serbia. His stance is supported by several modern scholars, such as Christopher Clark, but it remains controversial.
Fay left Harvard University to study at the Sorbonne and the University of Berlin. He taught at Dartmouth College and Smith College and, after the publication of his major book, at Harvard and Yale University.
Fay's conclusion was that all the European powers shared in the blame, but he blamed mostly the system of secret alliances that divided Europe after the Franco-Prussian War into two mutually suspicious camps of group solidarity: Triple Alliance against Triple Entente. He considered Austro-Hungary, Serbia and Russia to be primarily responsible for the immediate cause of war's outbreak. Other forces besides militarism and nationalism were at work, as the economics of imperialism and the newspaper press played roles.
Fay was elected to the American [Academy of Arts and Sciences] in 1931 and the American Philosophical Society in 1947.
Fay also wrote The Rise of Brandenburg-Prussia to 1786.
He married Sarah Eliza Proctor.
Works
- H. W. Snow, c. 1910 .
- with John Spencer Bassett, Dept. of History of Smith College, 1916.The Origins of the World War, 2 Vols., The Macmillan Company, 1928 .
- , H. Holt and Company, c. 1937 .
- , edited by George Matthew Dutcher, Henry Robinson Shipman, Sidney Bradshaw Fay, Augustus Hunt Shearer, William Henry Allison, The Macmillan Company, 1937.
Other
- Eduard Fueter, Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1921, Zurich .
- Friedrich Meinecke, The German Catastrophe, Harvard University Press, 1950 .
Articles
- "The Roman Law and the German Peasant." American Historical Review, Vol. 16, No. 2, Jan. 1911.
- "New Light on the Origins of the World War, I. Berlin and Vienna, to July 29," American Historical Review, Vol. 25, No. 4, Jul. 1920.
- "Serajevo Fifteen Years After." The Living Age, July 1929.
- "June 28, 1914." In Eugene Lohrke, Armageddon, 1930.
- "Peace-Making: 1919, 1945." The Forum, November 1945.
- "Our Responsibility for German Universities." The Forum, January 1946."The First U.N.O. Assembly." The Forum, April 1946."The Power of the Soviet Press." The Forum, August 1947.
- "The Marshall Plan: Second Phase." The Forum, February 1948.
- "Germany's Social Structure." The Forum, October 1948.