Theodore K. Rabb


Theodore K. Rabb was an American historian specializing in the early modern period of European history. He was a Professor Emeritus in the Princeton [University Department of History|Department of History] at Princeton University. He was one of the leading scholars in the field of 16th- and 17th-century Europe, focusing on varying topics such as climate history and food history.

Education

Born in Teplice-Sanov, Czechoslovakia, to Oskar and Rose Rabinowicz. His father was an author and professor, and in 1939 the family emigrated, settling in London. He studied at The Queen's College, Oxford and at Princeton University. His Ph.D. advisers were Elmore Harris Harbison and Frank Craven. Rabb was a professor of history at Stanford University, Northwestern University, and Harvard University before becoming an associate professor at Princeton University in 1967.

Career

He was a member of the Princeton faculty since 1967, teaching in both the History Department and in Humanistic Studies, an interdisciplinary program. He also directed Princeton's Community College programs.
In 1970, the same year he received a Guggenheim Fellowship, he co-founded the Journal of Interdisciplinary History with Robert I. Rotberg. He was also an advisor for the 1993 television series Renaissance. He was a member of the board of editors of the journals Computers and the Humanities, Computer Studies in the Humanities and Verbal Behavior, and Climatic Change.
He also served on the boards of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Save Venice, and he chaired the National Council for History Education and the New Jersey Council for the Humanities.

Books

  • Enterprise and Empire: Merchant and Gentry Investment in the Expansion of England, 1575-1630
  • The Struggle for Stability in Early Modern Europe
  • Renaissance Lives: Portraits of an Age
  • Jacobean Gentleman: Sir Edwin Sandys, 1561-1629
  • Emergence of International Business 1200-1800, Volume III: Enterprise and Empire
  • The Last Days of the Renaissance & the March to Modernity
  • Why Does Michelangelo Matter?: A Historian's Questions about the Visual Arts. A collection of reviews of art history books and art exhibitions.

As editor

  • ;
    With [Robert I. Rotberg]
  • The Family in History: Interdisciplinary Essays
  • Marriage and Fertility: Studies in Interdisciplinary History
  • Climate and History: Studies in Interdisciplinary History
  • Industrialization and Urbanization: Studies in Interdisciplinary History
  • The New History, the 1980s and Beyond: Studies in Interdisciplinary History
  • Hunger and History: The Impact of Changing Food Production and Consumption Patterns on Society
  • Population and Economy: Population and History from the Traditional to the Modern World
  • Art and History: Images and Their Meaning
  • ''The Origin and Prevention of Major Wars''
    with Ezra Suleiman
  • ''The Making and Unmaking of Democracy: Lessons from History and World Politics''

Journal articles

In the ''[Journal of Interdisciplinary History]''

  • 'The Historian and the Climatologist', 10 : 831-837
  • 'Coherence, Synthesis, and Quality in History', 12 : 315-332
  • 'The Development of Quantification in Historical Research', 13 : 591-601
  • 'The Interdisciplinary Nature of American History', 16 : 103-106
  • 'The Evidence of Art: Images and Meaning in History', 17 : 1-6
  • 'History and Religion: Interpretation and Illumination', 23 : 445-451
  • 'The Historian and Art: A New Maturity', 33 : 87-93
  • 'How Italian Was the Renaissance?', 33 : 569-575
  • 'Opera, Musicology, and History', 36 : 321-330
    Review articles
  • 'The Historian and the Art Historian', 4 : 107-117
  • 'The Historian and the Art Historian Revisited', 14 : 647-655
  • 'The Historian and the Art Historian, III: Recent Work on the Seventeenth Century', 20 : 437-444
  • 'Historians and Art Historians: A Lowering of Sights?', 27 : 87-94

In ''Past & Present">Past & Present (journal)">Past & Present''

  • 'Religion and the Rise of Modern Science', 31 : 111-126
  • 'Science, Religion and Society in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries', 33 : 148
  • 'Free Trade and the Gentry in the Parliament of 1604', 40 : 165-173
  • 'The Advent of Printing and the Problem of the Renaissance: A Comment', 52 : 135-140
  • 'The Role of the Commons', 92 : 55-78

Other journals