Paul Kosok

Paul August Kosok (21 April 1898 – 1959) was an American professor of history and government, who is credited as the first serious researcher of the Nazca Lines in Peru. His work on the lines started in 1939, when he was doing field study related to the irrigation systems of ancient cultures. By the 1950s, he had completed extensive mapping of more than 300 ancient canals in Peru, in collaboration with archeologist Richard P. Schaedel. Kosok demonstrated the culture's sophisticated management of water to support their settlements. He attended public schools before going to college where he earned a doctorate in history.

Academic career Kosok began as an assistant professor of history at Long Island University (LIU) in Brooklyn, where he taught several courses in history. His work, Modern Germany: A Study of Conflicting Loyalties, (1933), was written before the Nazis came to power and published by the University of Chicago Press as part of its "Studies of the Making of Citizens". One reviewer describe this as a "series on civic training in various countries and systems". Kosok's book was used by the State Department and others in training and preparing individuals for foreign service. It was reprinted in 1969.

As part of his education, Kosok studied and traveled in Europe in 1928 and in 1937. His early teaching at LIU included classes in the history of science.

In the 1930s, Kosok became interested in irrigation systems of ancient cultures, and their relation to patterns of settlement. He devoted most of the next twenty years of research to that topic, during which he collaborated with the archeologist Richard P. Schaedel. For instance, together they identified and mapped more than 300 ancient canals of prehistoric Peru, and found that the people had built highly sophisticated systems for shifting water from one valley to another.

Following his field studies on the irrigation systems, Kosok planned two volumes: one of general interest and one more technical. He was working on the general interest book on the irrigation of ancient cultures when he died in 1959; it was published posthumously in 1965 with the support of Schaedel. His manuscript for a scholarly text needed work that was to be undertaken by the University of Texas. She traveled and worked with him in Peru in 1941 when he was doing field studies there. Of their children, their son Michael accompanied his parents to Peru in 1948–49.

Works Modern Germany: A Study of Conflicting Loyalties, University of Chicago Press, 1933; reprint, Russell & Russell, 1969 Life, Land, and Water in Ancient Peru (1965), Long Island University Press (includes photographs by Kosok)