AHR (American Historical Review) RECENT DEATHS
(Obituary)
Carroll Quigley, who taught at Georgetown
University's School of Foreign Service for thirty-five years, died of a heart
attack on January 3, 1977 in Washington, D.C. at the age of 66. A dynamic
teacher, whose course on "Development of Civilization" was highly regarded by
his students, Dr. Quigley was one of Georgetown's most respected professors. A
dedicated educator, he received the student-voted Faculty Award for
distinguished teaching for four consecutive years before his death, and was
cited by SFS alumni from 1941to 1969 as the most influential in their
undergraduate careers.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts on November 9,
1910, Professor Quigley attended Boston Latin School, graduated magna cum laude
from Harvard, where he also obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees. He taught at
Princeton and at Harvard before coming to Georgetown. At the School of Foreign
Service, Dr. Quigley's Dev. Civ. was a basic, required course that rarely had
less than 300 students. He was a forceful and dramatic lecturer, with
intellectual vigor and wide-ranging knowledge, who placed great stress on the
analytical method in his approach to the study of history. This was well-illustrated in his book,
The Evolution of Civilizations (1961), which was
translated into Spanish and Portuguese. In this study, he sought to provide
fresh insights and perspectives, in the tradition of Oswald Spengler and Arnold
Toynbee, on how and why civilizations rise and fall. Dr. Quigley was convinced
that the historical processes of civilization were susceptible to scientific
formulations and could be logically ascertained. Although dogmatic at times in
asserting his own personal opinions in the classroom, he told his students,
"Don't believe a word from anyone, including me. Go and seek out the truth
yourselves."
Dr. Quigley will be remembered not only for his
work on comparative civilizations but for his challenging, monumental book of
some 1350 pages, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World of Our Time (1966).
Twenty years went into the writing of this work. Tragedy and Hope was more than
an account of contemporary history in the twentieth century; it was an attempt
to adopt a multidisciplinary approach in order to understand the past,
especially using political science, economics, social history, cultural
anthropology, psychology, and sociology. Largely a personal, interpretive
account of the twentieth century, the book sought, as Dr. Quigley put it, "to
look at the real situations which lie beneath the conceptual and verbal
symbols." Though flawed by his own biases and prejudices, Professor Quigley's
magnum opus is a lively, richly detailed, and informative work that amply
demonstrates the strengths and weaknesses of his historical analytical
techniques.
A member of long-standing in the American
Historical Association, Dr. Quigley also belonged to the American
Anthropological Association, the American Economic Association, and the American
Association for the Advancement of Science. He was a person of insatiable
curiosity and keenness of mind, who stood apart from the more narrow,
specialized scholar. Professor Quigley was a frequent lecturer at the Brookings
Institutions, the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, and the State
Department Foreign Service Institute. He was a staff member of the House
Committee that organized the National Aeronautics and Space Agency, and a
consultant to the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of History and Technology.
Shortly after his retirement, Professor Quigley
delivered a series of three lectures at Georgetown University on "Public
Authority and the State in the Western Tradition: A Thousand Years of Growth,
976-1976." As a summation of his philosophy and approaches to history, it was a
fitting climax to his teaching career. Peter Krogh, the Dean of the School of
Foreign Service, aptly stated, "The School and Carroll were not only compatible,
they were downright inseparable. And that is the way they should remain." A fund
for the purpose of endowing a chair in Dr. Quigley's name has been launched,
with contributions being raised among his former students. His loss is one which
is heavily felt at Georgetown University.
Jules Davids
Georgetown University
Scan of
Jules Davids' typewritten pages
