San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Cal professor, historian wrote of Washington
Robert Middlekauff, a distinguished historian who wrote what is considered one of the best one-volume histories of the American Revolution as well as a study of George Washington’s experience of the War of Independence, died March 10 at a retirement community in Pleasanton. He was 91.
The cause was complications of a stroke, said his wife, Beverly Middlekauff. UC Berkeley announced his death in March, but it was not widely reported at the time.
Middlekauff, author of five books, spent most of his career at Berkeley, where he was the Preston Hotchkis professor of history emeritus.
He was best known for “The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 17631789” (1982), the first work published in the 13-volume Oxford History of the United States. C. Vann Woodward, an original editor of the series, praised Middlekauff ’s “masterful command of the subject,” and his assessment of the book has been echoed by most historians. “The Glorious Cause” was a finalist for the 1983 Pulitzer Prize.
The book, a well-written, engaging narrative history, is aimed at general as well as specialist readers. It covers the period from the end of the Seven Years’ War between Britain and France (also known as the French and Indian War) through the ratification of the Constitution, with its focus on the Revolutionary War. But it was published at a time when political and military history were being eclipsed by a new interest in social and cultural history.
Although the book was generally well received, some reviewers found its approach outdated. For his part, Middlekauff defended the practice of narrative history: “The process of reconstructing what happened,” he said, “may be made to provide an explanation of events and their importance.”
Robert Lawrence Middlekauff was born July 5, 1929, in Yakima, Wash., to Harold and Katherine Ruth (Horne) Middlekauff. He received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Washington in 1952, the same year he married Beverly Jo Martin.
He served as a first lieutenant in the Marines from 1952 to 1954, deploying to Korea and Japan. He studied at Yale with Edmund Morgan, a renowned historian of Puritanism and colonial life, who remained an influence on him for more than 50 years. After receiving his doctorate in 1961, he moved to UC Berkeley, where he taught and, in the 1970s and early ’80s, held various administrative positions.
Before writing “A Glorious Cause,” Middlekauff had published “Ancients and Axioms: Secondary Education in Eighteenth-Century New England” (1963) and “The Mathers: Three Generations of Puritan Intellectuals, 1596-1728” (1971), which examined the development of Puritan theology and thought through the lives and work of the ministers Richard, Increase and Cotton Mather, drawing on private papers and unpublished writings as well as sermons. It won the Bancroft Prize, one of the most prestigious honors in American history, in 1972.
In “Benjamin Franklin and His Enemies” (1996), Middlekauff took an unusual approach, focusing on Franklin’s personal relationships and the emotions (especially anger) they wrought. He described Franklin’s conflict with Thomas Penn, proprietor of the Pennsylvania colony (and the son of its founder); John Adams; and Franklin’s own son William. The portrait that emerges is more complicated than the common views of Franklin as either a smug bourgeois or a genial old man.
Working on the revision of “The Glorious Cause” reawakened Middlekauff ’s curiosity about George Washington, which, he told John Fea in an interview in the online journal Current, “was not fully satisfied.” Edmund Morgan,
Robert Middlekauff, who spent most of his academic career at the UC Berkeley, was a distinguished historian who wrote what is considered one of the best one-volume histories of the American Revolution. He died in Pleasanton at 91.
he said, “strongly encouraged” him to “have another crack at Washington.” The result was “Washington’s Revolution: The Making of America’s First Leader” (2015).
Much of the material in that book is familiar, but Middlekauff took an unusual approach. It is, Richard Brookhiser wrote in the New York Times Book Review, “a story of the war from one man’s point of view.” Middlekauff appraised Washington’s experience of
war and politics in the French and Indian War; his restoration and supervision of his estate, Mount Vernon; his dedication to scientific agriculture; and the battles of the Revolutionary War.
In addition to his wife, Middlekauff is survived by a daughter, Dr. Holly R. Middlekauff, a professor of medicine at UCLA; a son, Sam J. Middlekauff; and three grandchildren.