Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T07:33:43.322Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Marcus Cunliffe Writes America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2005

MICK GIDLEY
Affiliation:
Leeds University.

Extract

Marcus Cunliffe (1922–1990) was incontestably an important figure in American studies. In the early part of his academic career he helped to found the subject area in Britain, and he was later both awarded professorial appointments at the Universities of Manchester and Sussex and elected to the chairmanship of the British Association for American Studies, from which positions he served as a personal inspiration and professional mentor to several “generations” of UK American studies academics. Those who knew him and worked with him were invariably struck by his tall good looks, charisma and charm – characteristics that no doubt also contributed to his successful career, in Britain and in the United States, first as a visiting scholar, and later, during his final years, as the occupant of an endowed chair at George Washington University in Washington, DC. As the correspondence in his papers attest, he was held in high – and warm – regard by many of the leading US historians of his heyday. More might be said about his charm here because it also permeates his writing and persists there as a kind of afterglow, and not only for those who encountered him in person – but this essay is a critical reconsideration of his published work that, though appreciative, at least aspires towards objectivity.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2005 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)