Peter Gay obuary | History books | The Guardian

Contents:

• PETER GAY
• IN MEMORIAM: PETER GAY
• PETER GAY, HISTORIAN WHO EXPLORED SOCIAL HISTORY OF IAS, DI AT 91
• PETER GAY OBUARY
• PETER GAY, 1923–2015
• PETER J. GAY PAPERS
• PETER GAY - BGRAPHY

PETER GAY

Home > News > In Memoriam: Peter Gay.

IN MEMORIAM: PETER GAY

In Memoriam: Peter Gay.

PETER GAY, HISTORIAN WHO EXPLORED SOCIAL HISTORY OF IAS, DI AT 91

Peter Gay, a German-born historian whose sense of tellectual adventure led him to wre groundbreakg books on the Enlightenment, the Victorian middle class, Sigmund Frd, Weimar culture and the cultural suatn of Jews Germany, died on Tuday at his home Manhattan. Yee/The New York TimMay 12, 2015Peter Gay, a German-born historian whose sense of tellectual adventure led him to wre groundbreakg books on the Enlightenment, the Victorian middle class, Sigmund Frd, Weimar culture and the cultural suatn of Jews Germany, died on Tuday at his home Manhattan. He was ath was nfirmed by his stepdghter Elizabeth Gay, a refugee om Nazi Germany, voted his reer to explorg the social history of ias, a qut that took him far om his origal area of specializatn, Voltaire and the Enlightenment.

PETER GAY OBUARY

Gay’s reputatn as one of the pre-ement historians of his generatn.

Gay to tra at the Wtern New England Instute for Psychoanalysis and motivated him to wre a revisnist psychohistory of the Victorian middle class, “The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Frd, ” whose five volum were published the 1980s and 1990s. Gay were both assiated, nonrelig Jews nourished by and trapped a Germanic culture whose anti-Semic unrcurrents gathered strength around them.

Gay’s most personal and anguished historil wrg, notably the says “Frd, Jews and Other Germans” (1978) and the tobgraphil “My German Qutn: Growg Up Nazi Berl” (1998).

PETER GAY, 1923–2015

Gay relled the pleasur of attendg the 1936 Olympics — spoiled only by the sight of Hler and Görg the stands — and the nfg mix of savage reprsn and tolerance that characterized life unr the Nazis until 1938. Gay was forced out of his school, and his father’s gentile partner appropriated the glassware bs. Gay attend bs school and tght himself English by readg magaz like Time and Collier’s.

Gay changed to s English graduatg om the Universy of Denver 1946, Mr.

Gay entered Columbia Universy, where he earned a master’s gree history 1947 and a Ph. Gay wrote “Voltaire’s Polics” a revisnist spir. Gay signaled a Frdian turn his terpretatn of history that was ratified by his formal psychoanalytic trag the 1970s.

PETER J. GAY PAPERS

Gay’s Frdian tour of the 19th century long on lorful stanc but short on analytic rigor, suggtive rather than persuasive. Gay’s nonil thkers. Gay remaed an unignorable historian long after his retirement.

Gay received his Ph. A rrectn was ma onMay 15, 2015: An obuary on Wednday about the historian Peter Gay referred imprecisely to the ship on which he and his fay left Germany 1939.

PETER GAY - BGRAPHY

Gay’s “The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Frd. ” They me out the 1980s and the 1990s, not jt the we handle rrectnsA versn of this article appears prt on, Sectn A, Page 25 of the New York edn wh the headle: Peter Gay, Historian and Frd Bgrapher, Di at 91. Peter Gay, who has died aged 91, was one of Ameri’s leadg historians, known particularly for his work on morn European cultural and tellectual history.

The first volume, subtled The Rise of Morn Paganism, was wily acclaimed far beyond the amic world, and won the Natnal Book award the first volume, subtled The Rise of Morn Pagansim, of Peter Gay’s massive study, was wily acclaimed far beyond the amic world In his encyclopedic The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Frd (five volum between 1984 and 1998), Gay explored wonrfully readable prose a wi range of aspects of the European – pecially the Brish, French and German – and the North Amerin middle class their heyday. But taken together, they are a fundamental text for anyone who wish to unrstand bourgeois culture the 19th and early 20th was, sentially, the culture to which Gay was born, Berl, as Peter Joachim Fröhlich, the son of Helga and Morz, a small bsman of left-leang views and liberal habs of md. Ined, Peter led a charmed life, beg admted to a grammar school unr the Nazis bee his father was a rated and war-wound army veteran and survivg the early years of the Third Reich whout any great difficulty as a blond, blue-eyed boy who did not nform to the Nazi image of a Jewish person any his engrossg memoir, My German Qutn: Growg up Nazi Berl (1998), Gay nfsed that he enuntered antisemism personally only on the very rart of ocsns: once, when, unually, a teacher clared that “Jews always exaggerate” (a remark to which he attributed his later ncern for precisn his historil wrgs), and 1936 when the fay went by r on a tour of Germany and enuntered a notice outsi a village sayg: “Jews are not wanted here.

It means happy, jolly or gay, and they chose the last of the three nam, only for Peter to start receivg hate-mail years later, as the rise of the gay liberatn movement ma homophob thk his surname was a polil studied at the Universy of Colorado, Denver, then took a master’s gree at Columbia Universy, New York, 1947, and a doctorate polil science four years later, on the leadg “revisnist” social mocrat of the Kaiser’s Germany, Eduard Bernste, wh whose views he to a large extent intified. But was not a path that Gay followed his amic reer: stead, he went another directn tght at Columbia om 1947 to 1969, beg profsor 1962, and was then at Yale up to his retirement 1993. His Frdianism was often applied wh a light touch, however, as The Bourgeois Experience, and his many says and shorter books on Frd and aspects of his life and thought were not uncril their approach to the, cultured, urteo and hospable, Gay held many semars and discsns his hoe, fondly remembered by his stunts.