Robert Roswell Palmer

Robert Roswell Palmer (January 11, 1909 – June 11, 2002) was an American historian. Specializing in eighteenth-century France, he is best known for The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760–1800 (1959 and 1964), which examined the Atlantic Revolutions, an age of democratic revolution that swept Europe and the Americas between 1760 and 1800. He was awarded the Bancroft Prize in History for the first volume. Palmer also achieved distinction as a history text writer.

Life Born in Chicago, Illinois, Palmer accelerated through the public schools. By winning a citywide contest for a play written in Latin, he earned a full scholarship to the University of Chicago where he studied with the historian Louis Gottschalk and earned his bachelor's degree (Ph.B.) in 1931. He received his Ph.D. in History from Cornell University three years later, studying with Carl L. Becker. the 2nd edition, and Lloyd Kramer is coauthor from 2002, the 9th ed.) Palmer's introduction covers the period from the earliest signs of human civilization to 1300 CE. The main body of the text covers events from the Black Death to the Fall of the Soviet Union in European history. The book is organized partly by ideas: for example, the relation of the French Revolution to modern and ancient thought may be mentioned before the French Revolution.

Palmer's most important work of historical scholarship is The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760–1800. It was published by Princeton in two volumes: The Challenge (1959), which won the Bancroft Prize in American History, and The Struggle (1964). Palmer's masterwork traced the growth of two competing forces – ideas of democracy and equality, on the one hand, and the growing power of aristocracies in society, on the other – and the results of the collision between these forces, including both the American Revolution and the French Revolution. Thus it foreshadowed the development of "comparative Atlantic history" as a field. Catholics and Unbelievers in Eighteenth Century France (Princeton University Press, 1939) Twelve Who Ruled: the Committee of Public Safety, during the Terror (Princeton, 1941; Bicentennial ed. with a new preface, 1989) The Procurement and Training of Ground Combat Troops, by Palmer, Bell I. Wiley and William R. Keast (Department of the Army, 1948) – about the U.S. Army, 1939–1945 A History of the Modern World (Alfred A. Knopf, 1950); 11th ed. by Palmer, Joel Colton, and Lloyd Kramer (McGraw-Hill, 2013) The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760–1800 (Princeton, vol. 1, 1959; vol. 2, 1964); one-volume edition, with new introduction by David Armitage, 2014; online edition vols. 1–2; online free The World of the French Revolution (Allen & Unwin, 1971) – shorter and less scholarly treatment of The Age, vol. 2 The Improvement of Humanity: Education and the French Revolution (Princeton, 1985)

Translations Georges Lefebvre, The Coming of the French Revolution, 1789 (Princeton, 1947) [orig. 1939] The School of the French Revolution: a documentary history of the College of Louis-le-Grand and its director, Jean-François Champagne, 1762–1814 (Princeton, 1975), edited and transl. by Palmer Louis Bergeron, France Under Napoleon (Princeton, 1981) [orig. 1972] The Two Tocquevilles, Father and Son: Hervé and Alexis de Tocqueville on the coming of the French Revolution (Princeton, 1987), ed. and transl. by Palmer Jean-Paul Bertaud, The Army of the French Revolution: from citizen-soldiers to instrument of power (Princeton, 1988) [orig. 1979] From Jacobin to Liberal: Marc-Antoine Jullien, 1775–1848 (Princeton, 1993), selected and transl. with commentary by Palmer Jean Baptiste Say, An Economist in Troubled Times: writings (Princeton, 1997), selected and transl. by Palmer

Historical atlas Atlas of World History (Rand McNally, 1957; Revised ed., 1965)

From 1983 the [Rand McNally] Atlas of World History, general editor R. I. Moore, is based on The Hamlyn Historical Atlas (Hamlyn, 1981).

Honors and awards 1958, elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 1959, elected to the American Philosophical Society 1960, Bancroft Award in History, American Council of Learned Societies Special Prize 1961, served as president of the Society for French Historical Studies 1970, president of the American Historical Association 1990, Antonio Feltrinelli International Prize for History in Rome Honorary degrees awarded by the universities of Uppsala and Toulouse