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peter gay

Peter Gay (1923–2015) - Volume 49 Issue 1

Contents:

PETER GAY OBUARY

Mr. Gay wrote groundbreakg books on the Enlightenment, Sigmund Frd and the cultural suatn of Jews Germany. * peter gay *

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.

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

* peter gay *

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. 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.

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. Footnote 5 In the meantime, Gay explored the entertaments of Havana and worked on his English, polishg his prose at the Havana Bs Amy (to which he received a scholarship) and vourg Amerin perdils like Time, Collier's, and the Saturday Eveng Post. In Gay's study, Bernste is very much the hero, the reformer who sought to ee the ethil re of Marxism om s encstatn Hegelian metaphysics and rencile socialism's visn of equaly wh the polil stutns of parliamentarism and mocracy.

The choice of Bernste reflected Gay's rejectn of both the Stalist left and the McCarthye right; was also a rebuff to those of his lleagu and acquatanc who had migrated om one polil extreme to the other—typilly om the far left to the far right: “I felt fortunate beg immune om what I took to be an often willful polil bldns of two warrg groups who disputed their ground at New York cktail parti and on the Wellfleet beach. ”Footnote 7 Gay remaed fundamentally optimistic regardg Amerin polil stutns, even if his worldview was shaped ccially by tellectuals—many of them also German-Jewish émigrés—whose views of Ameri were hardly naïve or uncril. Although she never earned a doctorate, Ruth Gay would go on to wre a seri of well-received works on Jewish history, cludg The Jews of Germany: A Historil Portra (1992), Unfished People: Eastern European Jews Enunter Ameri (1997), and Safe Among the Germans: Liberated Jews After World War II (2002).

PETER GAY (1923–2015)

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. He was 91. Read the plete article at the New York Tim webse. * peter gay *

”Footnote 15 In a siar manner, Gay sought to vdite the Enlightenment's attu toward history, argug that s notns of historil atn and culture were far richer than prevly acknowledged, and s nceptns of progrs far more tentative, particularly given the philosoph’ ls-than-rosy timate of human nature.

Gay sisted, agast this le of thought, that the philosoph had sought a tly scientific view of the world, ground not ratnalist philosophy but rather a skeptil empiricism whose rults uld be revised light of new evince and new rmatn. In Voltaire's Polics: The Poet as Realist (1959), Gay attempted to monstrate that almost all Voltaire's wrgs, cludg his plays and histori, were rmed by a sire to tervene ntemporary polil affairs, but that the threat of censorship or even imprisonment had forced him to hi his tentns behd “vague, allive generali. ”Footnote 19 Gay's approach to Voltaire—lotg his wrgs their ntemporary polil environment—formed the basis for what he me to ll the “social history of ias, ” which he envisned as an alternative to, on the one hand, Arthur Lovejoy's form of tellectual history, which ma ias the un of analysis and traced them across time as they passed om one great thker to the next, and, on the other hand, the type of tellectual history that foced on cultural trop and clichés—what he lled “the reer of send-class ias send-class mds.

PETER GAY

About Peter Gay: The son of a glassware maker, Peter Joachim Fröhlich grew up Germany as the Nazis rose to power. Espg 1938 wh the rt of hi... * peter gay *

”Footnote 20 Gay's form of tellectual history, by ntrast, was guid by the prciple that “ias have many dimensns”: “They are exprsed by dividuals, but they are social products; they are nceived, elaborated and modified amid a specific set of historil circumstanc… Therefore, the social historian of ias nnot rt ntent wh analyzg their formal logil stcture. ”Footnote 21 For Gay, the advantage of this approach was that helped unravel some of the more problematic aspects of the Enlightenment, such as Denis Dirot's sexual libertism (which uld be seen as a way of attackg the Catholic Church), Jean-Jacqu Rose's Social Contract (not jt a work of polil theory, but a proposal to reform the Genevan cy-state), and Voltaire's antisemism, which Gay explaed (away) as both a product of his day and as an direct means of attackg the te famy, i. Gay argued that the philosoph were “morn pagans, ” not jt the sense that they had sought to rever the herage of classicism but also (and pecially) bee they had been irreemably hostile to anized relign—and Christiany particular.

”Footnote 25 This was a readg of the Enlightenment that placed Voltaire and his mpaign to “csh the famy” ont and center, while margalizg the German Aufklärer, whom Gay emed “isolated, impotent, and almost wholly unpolil. ”Footnote 33 In fact, Gay wrote most affectnately about those few stutns that seemed to be bastns of vigoro cricism and reasoned quiry, such as the German Amy for Polics, the Psychoanalytil Instute Berl, and the Warburg Instute, the tellectual home of Gay's idol Ernst Cassirer. Objective or not, the says this volume are among the most powerful and personal that Gay ever wrote, particularly three set piec that pict enunters between artists and crics, masters and discipl, Jews and “Aryans” that unfold the shadow of mil Wagnerism.

IN MEMORIAM: PETER GAY

Dr. Gay, who ped Nazi Germany as a child, tght at Yale for many years. * peter gay *

Footnote 40 Jt as Gay had nstcted his image of the philosoph, to some gree, on the mol of Frd, he now ma the se for Frd as the “last philosophe, ” the vtigator who had broken through to that science of the human that had been the goal of the Enlightenment. Gay's sistence on Frd's stat as an empirilly ground scientist put him at odds wh those scholars who sought the roots of psychoanalysis the artistic and polil climate of Vienna, notably Carl Schorske, whose celebrated terpretatn of Frd he dismissed as “eccentric. ”Footnote 43 If there was a cultural ntext for Frd's thought, Gay suggted, was not fed by his physil surroundgs but rather by the books he had read (Goethe, Shakpeare) and the art he llected (notably reproductns of classil sculptur), all of which reflected tablished nons of German bourgeois taste, as well as by his ntacts wh scientists and tellectuals at home and abroad: “Frd, ” Gay sisted, “lived far ls Atrian Vienna than his own md.

Gay had taken note of the rise of social history the 1970s and the proliferatn of tailed studi of peasant and workg-class life, and he was nvced that the middle class were need of siar attentn, particularly given what he saw as misnceptns about the bourgeoisie as narrow, reprsed, and philiste. Footnote 49) Another way which Gay's Bourgeois Experience parted om siar studi was s verage of not only Bra, France, and Germany, but also the Uned Stat, which offered evince of bourgeois life “at s purt or, perhaps better, at the edge of s sted future. For Gay, this and siar ttimony showed that the Victorian middle class—not jt men but also women—took pleasure sex, givg the lie to claims to the ntrary by the Victorians themselv and by later generatns of historians.

ALUMN, HISTORIAN PETER GAY DI AT AGE 91

Lookg for books by Peter Gay? See all books thored by Peter Gay, cludg Weimar Culture: the outsir as sir, and Frd: A Life for Our Time, and more on * peter gay *

In particular, was claimed, Gay's project suffered om parison wh the work of Michel Fouult, whose fluence the amy was reachg an apex and who had traversed some of the same historil terra as Gay, notably his attentn to issu of sexualy and his impatience wh received pieti about reprsed Victorians. Gay was particularly cril of Friedrich Meecke, the twentieth century's greatt exemplar of this tradn, both for his polil equivotns the Weimar Republic and for The German Catastrophe (1946), where he suggted that post-Nazi Germany uld purify self by tablishg Goethe societi every town and village. At the same time, Gay's mment to Frd prepared him to acknowledge the role that emotn, pecially anger, played his own historil wrg, jt as had allowed him to intify s role the tellectual bat of the eighteenth and neteenth centuri.

Ernst Cassirer had first emphasized the break between seventeenth-century ratnalism and Enlightenment empiricism, but Gay doubled down on this claim The Enlightenment, repeatedly emphasizg the philosoph’ hostily to metaphysil speculatn. Dedited to E Bse, the gentile iend who had taken re of his fay's valuabl and hid Morz Fröhlich durg Kristallnacht, this book reprented Gay's attempt to relibrate his plited relatnship wh Germany, which had evolved over the s om outright hatred to somethg more ambivalent, thanks large part to his iendships wh dividual Germans (his relatnship wh Karl Dietrich Bracher was particularly important). Gay also ed the book to exprs his tratns wh those who qutned why Germany's Jews had not tried to leave much earlier than 1938 or who suggted, as had Gershom Scholem, that the ia of a German-Jewish symbsis had been a lie om the start: “‘And you still thought, after the Nürnberg Laws and other horrors, that you were Germans?

”Footnote 63 Conversely, Gay's fay refed to accept the Jewish inty beg imposed on them by the Nazi regime: “Their fn of our race was jt another lie that we repudiated as unhistoril and unscientific… Whatever our p fellow-pariahs might say, we uld not make ourselv believe what we did not believe. In his acceptance speech, Gay noted that, even fifty years after the Holot, was still necsary to speak of “Germans” and “Jews” as mutually exclive tegori and that much had to be done before one uld speak of “normal relatns” between the two.

PETER C. GAY, M.D.

68 quot om Peter Gay: 'The te hypocre knows what he is dog, and do to his own advantage. The unnsc hypocre is simply man civilizatn.', 'Frd never qutned the powerful participatn of objective reali the very nstutn of human experience. Love, as he put late life, seeks objects. So do hatred. And those objects are external, not ternal, agents of experience.', and 'Sheer stupidy — that much unrrated force history.' * peter gay *

But drivg Gay's scholarship was not jt a sire for knowledge but an “urge to munite, ” to put right what others had supposedly gotten wrong, to replace myth wh fact, to nta dangero lns, to reward urage and honty, and to ntribute this way to the “science of eedom.

PETER GAY, HISTORIAN WHO WROTE ABOUT FRD AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT, DI

Dr. Gay was a popular and prize-wng historian who meticuloly traced the rise of secular Wtern thought, om a prize-wng history of the Enlightenment to a btsellg bgraphy of Sigmund Frd * peter gay *

11 Hallowell was the thor of The Decle of Liberalism as an Iology, Wh Particular Reference to German Poli-Legal Thought (London: Kegan Pl, 1946), as well as Ma Currents Morn Polil Thought (New York: Henry Holt, 1950); Kirk, one of the founrs of “tradnalist nservatism, ” was the thor of The Conservative Md, om Burke to Santayana (Chigo: Regnery, 1953)12 Gay, Peter, “The Enlightenment the History of Polil Theory, ” Polil Science Quarterly 69, no.

40 Peter Gay, Frd for Historians (New York: Oxford Universy Prs, 1985); im, A Godls Jew: Frd, Atheism, and the Makg of Psychoanalysis (New Haven, CT: Yale Universy Prs, 1987); im, Frd: A Life for Our Time (New York: Norton, 1988); im, Readg Frd: Exploratns and Entertaments (New Haven, CT: Yale Universy Prs, 1990).

PETER GAY, RENOWNED HISTORIAN AND FRD BGRAPHER, DI AT 91

From Bottoms and Problemistas to theatre mps and gay wrtlers, this summer has somethg for everyone — pecially if you're queer. * peter gay *

48 Peter Gay, Edutn of the Sens (Oxford: Oxford Universy Prs, 1984); im, The Tenr Passn (Oxford: Oxford Universy Prs, 1986); im, The Cultivatn of Hatred (New York: Norton, 1993); im, The Naked Heart (New York: Norton, 1995).

Kid ma the parison explic: “Gay wav away Michel Fouult and his followers a biblgraphil note, but pared to Fouult's work this volume is very pale ed, facile and shallow, makg one wish that the two historians were not so ly divid: one has all the note rds and the other all the ias. Gay, an executive wh fense ntractor Raytheon Technologi, was makg his weekly mute to California, where he was velopg a new plant that would later produce the pany's next generatn of Patrt ually took Amerin Airl Flight 11 to Los Angel on Mondays, returng to his Tewksbury home on Fridays. Memorabily MetricsPage views of Peter Gays by languageAmong HISTORIANSContemporariIn GermanyAmong HISTORIANS In Germany Peter GayPeter Joachim Gay (né Fröhlich; June 20, 1923 – May 12, 2015) was a German-Amerin historian, tor, and thor.

I WAS TEAM DESANTIS BEFORE HIS DISGTG ANTI-GAY ADGONE TOO FARTO DESANTIS, IF YOU ARE GAY, YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO BE A PART OF THE NSERVATIVE MOVEMENT.YVONNE DEAN-BAILEYUPDATED JUL. 05, 2023 12:28PM EDT / PUBLISHED JUL. 01, 2023 11:46PM EDT OPNMICHAEL M SANTIAGO/GETTY IMAGIN THEORY, I AM RON DESANTIS’ PERFECT VOTER. I AM A LIFELONG NSERVATIVE, I VEHEMENTLY OPPOSE ANY AND ALL COVID RTRICTNS, AND I AM PASSNATELY ANTI-TMP. WHAT ULD BE A MORE IAL VOTER FOR A NDIDATE LIKE DESANTIS?THERE’S ONE PROBLEM FOR DESANTIS, THOUGH: I AM A GAY WOMAN. AND I N’T STAND BEHD HIS ATTACKS AGAST THE LGBTQ+ MUNY.I WAS UNNIABLY ON TEAM DESANTIS BEFORE HIS MPAIGN SHARED WHAT ULD BE NSIRED THE MOST ANTI-LGBTQ+ AD RECENT HISTORY, BOASTG ABOUT ALL THE MEASUR HE’S SUPPORTED CRACKG DOWN ON THE LGBTQ+ MUNY. NOT ONLY DID DESANTIS SHOW THAT HE IS AS ANTI-LGBTQ+ AS THE MASTREAM MEDIA HAS ALLEGED, HE MA A MOCKERY OF ANY GOP NDIDATE THAT SHOWS AN TERT LGBTQ+ RIGHTS, SETTG THE WHOLE PARTY BACK S. DPE MY NSERVATIVE CRENTIALS, YOU ULDN’T PAY ME TO VOTE FOR THE FLORIDA ERNOR NOW. I AM A LBIAN AND DESANTIS HAS MA ABUNDANTLY CLEAR THAT HE DON’T WANT ANY LGBTQ+ NSERVATIV ON HIS TEAM BEE OF THEIR INTY. WHEN DESANTIS WAS TOYG WH THE IA OF NNG FOR PRINT, HE SOUND LIKE THE PERFECT NDIDATE: HE WAS TMP WHOUT THE TMPS. LTLE DID I KNOW DESANTIS WAS FARTHER TO THE RIGHT ON ISSU THAT MEANT THE MOST TO ME AND THE MORE THAN 70 PERCENT OF AMERINS WHO SUPPORT GAY RIGHTS.HE HAS MA CLEAR THE PAST FEW WEEKS THAT HE’S MORE TERTED APPEASG TWTER TROLLS WHO ABHOR ANY AMERIN WHO INTIFI AS LGBTQ+. TO DESANTIS, IF YOU ARE GAY, YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO BE A PART OF THE NSERVATIVE MOVEMENT.A FEW YEARS AGO, I WOULDN’T HAVE BELIEVED THIS, BUT DESANTIS' RECENT ANTI-LGBTQ+ AD HAS PROVED THAT HE IS TO THE RIGHT OF TMP WHEN TO LGBTQ+ ISSU. IF TMP WAS SOMEONE WHO DON’T SUPPORT THE MOVEMENT, DESANTIS IS AN ALL-OUT HATER.MY GAYNS HAS NOTHG TO DO WH THE FACT THAT FLORIDA IS A BOOMG STATE AN OTHERWISE LACKLTER ENOMY. THAT BEG SAID, DESANTIS HAS MA ABUNDANTLY CLEAR THAT HE DO NOT SUPPORT GAY AMERINS REGARDLS OF WHETHER THEY SUPPORT HIS NSERVATIVE AGENDA.WHEN I FIRST ENUNTERED DESANTIS DURG HIS BOLD STANCE AGAST COVID MANDAT EARLIER THIS YEAR, I WAS GENERALLY PLEASED WH THE FLORIDA ERNOR. HE SEEMED JT LIKE WHAT NSERVATIV HAVE BEEN MISSG. BUT WHEN THE LEGISLATIVE SSN BROUGHT ISSU NCERNG LGBTQ+ RIGHTS TO THE FOREONT, MY EXCEMENT QUICKLY TURNED TO DISAPPOTMENT. IT BEME EVINT THAT DESANTIS WAS NOT THE CHAMPN OF DIVIDUAL EEDOMS AND RIGHTS THAT I HAD HOPED FOR.HIS ANTI-GAY RHETORIC AND ACTNS ARE NOT ONLY EPLY HURTFUL TO LGBTQ+ AMERINS LIKE MYSELF BUT ALSO TARNISH THE IMAGE OF THE NSERVATIVE MOVEMENT. AS A LIFELONG NSERVATIVE, I BELIEVE THE PRCIPL OF LIMED ERNMENT, PERSONAL RPONSIBILY, AND DIVIDUAL LIBERTI. YET, DESANTIS’ APPROACH TO LGBTQ+ ISSU GO AGAST THE VERY PRCIPL.BY EXCLUDG LGBTQ+ NSERVATIV AND ATTACKG THEIR RIGHTS, DESANTIS ALIENAT A SIGNIFINT PORTN OF HIS POTENTIAL BASE, EFFECTIVELY DRIVG AWAY VOTERS WHO SHARE MANY OF HIS OTHER NSERVATIVE BELIEFS. IT IS DISHEARTENG TO WNS A NDIDATE WHO ULD HAVE BEEN A UNG FORCE WH THE PARTY STEAD NTRIBUTG TO FURTHER DIVISIVENS.DESANTIS’ STANCE ON LGBTQ+ ISSU NOT ONLY NTRADICTS NSERVATIVE VALU BUT ALSO REFLECTS A SEVERE DISNNECT OM THE MAJORY OF AMERINS WHO SUPPORT GAY RIGHTS. ACRDG TO POLLS, OVER 70 PERCENT OF AMERINS SUPPORT GAY MARRIAGE, AND THIS NUMBER NTU TO RISE. BY DISREGARDG SUCH A SIGNIFINT PORTN OF THE POPULATN, DESANTIS REVEALS A NCERNG LACK OF UNRSTANDG OF THE EVOLVG SOCIETAL NORMS AND VALU.AS A GAY WOMAN, MY SEXUAL ORIENTATN IS JT ONE ASPECT OF MY INTY, AND SHOULD NOT FE MY POLIL BELIEFS OR MY PLACE WH THE NSERVATIVE MOVEMENT. UNFORTUNATELY, DESANTIS SEEMS TO BELIEVE THAT ONE’S SEXUAL ORIENTATN TERM THEIR WORTHS TO BE PART OF THE NSERVATIVE E. THIS DIVISIVE MENTALY DO NOT BO WELL FOR THE FUTURE OF THE REPUBLIN PARTY OR S CHANC OF SUCCS BROAR ELECTNS.THE REPUBLIN PARTY SHOULD STRIVE TO BE A BIG-TENT PARTY, EMBRACG DIVERSE PERSPECTIV AND VOIC. ALIENATG LGBTQ+ DIVIDUALS ONLY WEAKENS THE PARTY’S APPEAL AND RTRICTS S ABILY TO ATTRACT NEW SUPPORTERS. IT IS VAL FOR THE PARTY TO EVOLVE AND ADAPT TO THE CHANGG ATTUS OF THE AMERIN PEOPLE, RATHER THAN CLGG TO OUTDATED AND DISCRIMATORY VIEWS.DESANTIS MT REGNIZE THAT HIS ANTI-GAY RHETORIC IS NOT ONLY HARMFUL TO LGBTQ+ AMERINS BUT ALSO TRIMENTAL TO THE VERY PRCIPL HE CLAIMS TO UPHOLD. IF HE TLY AIMS TO LEAD THE NSERVATIVE MOVEMENT AND BRG ABOUT POSIVE CHANGE FOR ALL AMERINS, HE MT ABANDON DIVISIVE TACTICS AND FOC ON POLICI THAT PROMOTE UNY AND CLIVY.SO FAR, HE IS ONLY LOSG EVERYDAY AMERINS, CLUDG MANY NSERVATIV LIKE MYSELF, THROUGH HIS DISGTG ANTI-GAY RHETORIC. HIS ATTACKS AGAST THE LGBTQ+ MUNY AND EXCLN OF LGBTQ+ NSERVATIV ARE NOT ONLY MORALLY WRONG BUT POLILLY MISGUID. THE REPUBLIN PARTY MT DISTANCE SELF OM SUCH HARMFUL BEHAVR AND STRIVE TO BE A PARTY THAT WEL ALL AMERINS, REGARDLS OF THEIR SEXUAL ORIENTATN. ONLY THEN N HOPE TO REPRENT THE TE VALU OF NSERVATISM AND GARNER THE SUPPORT NEED TO SUCCEED FUTURE ELECTNS. YVONNE DEAN-BAILEY

Unr Peter Gay’s stctn that semter, I learned that I had a surprisg number of thgs mon wh Dora, the Wolf Man, and the Rat Man—I was nrotic, showed signs of obssive pulsive disorr, and had some light symptoms of hysteria.

How I ever managed to make through my bourgeois New York childhood, let alone through my first few years at Yale, seemed to me nearly miraculo, but Peter Gay, his urtly, avuncular way, also disabed me of the ia that I was any way special. Peter Gay was an expert of the social history of the European bourgeoisie—his magisterial five-volume history, The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Frd, appeared between the years 1984 and 1998—and he tght his stunts to nsir Frd not only as a great geni, but also as a Vienne Jew astutely observg the world which he lived. What was so utterly enlighteng, then, to e a very Gayian term, about Peter Gay’s lectur on Frd was precisely his abily to suate Frd his late 19th- and early 20th-century world whout any way dimishg his acplishment; what was thrillg, that is, was his abily to nvey how Frd’s historil circumstanc did not exclively create, but certaly ma possible his set of perceptns about seemgly universal aspects of human psychology.

Gay tght me—and to this I believe I owe my own trajectory as a scholar—that to separate the fields of history, psychology, lerature, relign, and polics om one another was to produce a drastilly rced unrstandg of the past. Gay and his parents emigrated 1941 om Cuba to the Uned Stat, where they settled Denver orr for his mother to nvalce at a Jewish sanarium for tuberculosis treatment—an episo that sounds like a zany ncurrence of Mann’s Magic Mounta, Frd’s Dora, and the Wild Wt. Over the urse of Peter Gay’s long and immensely productive reer, he shared wh a large Amerin public the grand narrativ of European tellectual and social thought, pturg for this new world the pleasur and idsyncrasi of the old world that his fay had left behd.

JAGUARS ACH KEV MAXEN OUT AS GAY HISTORIC ANNOUNCEMENT

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. In my nversatns wh lleagu and iends about his legacy, what has stck me the most is the diversy of those who me to admire his work: psychoanalysts, historians, polil theorists, humanists, and most importantly a general class of ted people for whom Gay’s wi tellect and clear prose were irristible.

Gay wrote the book’s Gay is also creded, through a seri of says and books the 1950s and ’60s, wh changg the image of Enlightenment thkers such as Voltaire om impractil ialists to astute visnari able to work wh the systems they helped overturn. Gay helped fe the Enlightenment era as a pletn of the revival of ancient Greek culture that began wh the Gay received the Natnal Book Award 1967 for his first volume of "The Enlightenment: An Interpretatn, " subtled "The Rise of Morn Paganism. Gay changed his name upon beg an Amerin cizen 1941, makg a direct translatn of “Froelich” to graduated om the Universy of Denver 1946, then went to Columbia Universy, where he received a master’s gree 1947 and a doctorate 1951 polil tght history at Columbia om 1962 to 1969, then joed Yale as a profsor of parative and tellectual European history.

*BEAR-MAGAZINE.COM* PETER GAY

Peter Gay (1923–2015) | Central European History | Cambridge Core .

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