Samuel Eliot Morison: The intellectual life of colonial New England (Cornell paperbacks)

Samuel Eliot Morison: The intellectual life of colonial New England (Cornell paperbacks)


Samuel Eliot Morison, a famous American historian, was born in Boston in 1887. In 1912, he received his Ph.D. from Harvard. Then he started his teaching in Harvard in 1915. He became a full professor in 1925. In 1941, he became Jonathan Trumbull professor of American history there.

Samuel Eliot Morison was not just an American historian. In fact, he served himself as the university's official historian and published a three-volume history of the institution, namely, the Tercentennial History of Harvard College and University. They were completed in 1936, which helped him to win reputation very much.

Morison also taught history in England. Between 1922 and 1925 he was Harmsworth professor of American history at Oxford. As an accomplished sailor, he retired from the navy in 1951 as a rear admiral. Attrated by the great deeds of Christopher Columbus and John Paul Jones, he wrote books on them and  won Pulitzer Prize nomination for his biographies on Christopher Columbus and John Paul Jones, Admiral of the Ocean Sea (1941) and John Paul Jones: A Sailor's Biography (1952).

Morsionwas a repsonsible historian indeed. In order to write his biogrphies more convincing, he even went onto the high seas and attempted to experiences their sealives and hardships. The U. S Navy even selected him write a history of its operations in World War II, Morison acceted it without hesitation, which made him much more famous. In 1942, as an excellent citizen, Morison was commissioned by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to write a history of U.S. naval operations in World War II and given the rank of lieutenant commander. Morison finished the 15 volumes of his History of United States Naval Operations in World War II from 1947 to 1962.

Morison retired from Harvard in 1955. However, he continued his research and writing in his rest life.