Gerhard Weinberg to Receive 2009 Pritzker Military Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement
Newswire Services
June 22, 2009
$100,000 Award to Be Presented at October 24, 2009 Gala in Chicago
CHICAGO, IL -- Gerhard L. Weinberg has been selected to receive the 2009 Pritzker Military Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing. The $100,000 honorarium, citation and medallion, sponsored by the Chicago-based Tawani Foundation, will be presented at the Library's annual Liberty Gala on October 24, 2009 at Chicago's Palmer House Hilton Hotel. The announcement was made today via Internet webcast at www.pritzkermilitarylibrary.org.
The Pritzker Military Library Literature Award recognizes a living author for a body of work that has profoundly enriched the public understanding of American military history. A national panel of writers and historians -- including the first and second recipients, James M. McPherson and Allan R. Millett -- reviewed nominations and definitive works submitted by publishers, agents, booksellers, and other professional literary organizations.
James N. Pritzker, founder of the Pritzker Military Library and a retired Colonel in the Illinois Army National Guard, said that "Dr. Weinberg is truly a gifted writer of military history who has devoted his skills and talent to produce A World at Arms, perhaps the finest study of World War Two ever attempted by a single scholar."
Gerhard Weinberg was born in Hanover, Germany on January 1, 1928. He attended school there, but was expelled for being Jewish in 1938, and went to England. In 1940, his family moved to the United States. Weinberg graduated from Albany High School and enrolled in the New York State College for Teachers. He later served in the US Army in occupied Japan, teaching American GIs history and government as well as literacy classes. He took an MA in History at the University of Chicago in 1949 and a PhD in 1951.
Dr. Weinberg has taught at the Universities of Chicago, Kentucky, Michigan, and North Carolina, with visiting appointments at Bonn University in Germany and the US Air Force Academy. He has frequently lectured for the Extension Program of the Naval War College as well as at the Marine Corps University and the United States Military Academy at West Point.
He is author of many books including A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II (Cambridge University Press); World in the Balance: Behind the Scenes of World War II (University Press of New England); Germany, Hitler, and World War II: Essays in Modern German and World History (Cambridge University Press); Hitler's Foreign Policy 1933-1939: The Road to World War II (Enigma Press single- volume paperback available in Fall 2009); The Foreign Policy of Hitler's Germany (Prometheus Books); and Visions of Victory: The Hopes of Eight World War II Leaders (Cambridge University Press).
Dr. Weinberg currently serves as the William Rand Kenan, Jr. Professor Emeritus of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he has been a member of the history faculty since 1974. He lives with his wife in Efland, North Carolina. States Weinberg, "I am very grateful for the award and attribute much of the credit to the teachers at Hillcrest School in Swanage (England), Albany (New York), and Chicago who trained me wonderfully as well as to students, both undergraduate and graduate, who have challenged and inspired me over the years. And, of course, to all of the archivists who responded patiently to a very demanding visitor."
For more information, visit: tawanifoundation.org.
CHICAGO, IL -- Gerhard L. Weinberg has been selected to receive the 2009 Pritzker Military Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing. The $100,000 honorarium, citation and medallion, sponsored by the Chicago-based Tawani Foundation, will be presented at the Library's annual Liberty Gala on October 24, 2009 at Chicago's Palmer House Hilton Hotel. The announcement was made today via Internet webcast at www.pritzkermilitarylibrary.org.
The Pritzker Military Library Literature Award recognizes a living author for a body of work that has profoundly enriched the public understanding of American military history. A national panel of writers and historians -- including the first and second recipients, James M. McPherson and Allan R. Millett -- reviewed nominations and definitive works submitted by publishers, agents, booksellers, and other professional literary organizations.
James N. Pritzker, founder of the Pritzker Military Library and a retired Colonel in the Illinois Army National Guard, said that "Dr. Weinberg is truly a gifted writer of military history who has devoted his skills and talent to produce A World at Arms, perhaps the finest study of World War Two ever attempted by a single scholar."
Gerhard Weinberg was born in Hanover, Germany on January 1, 1928. He attended school there, but was expelled for being Jewish in 1938, and went to England. In 1940, his family moved to the United States. Weinberg graduated from Albany High School and enrolled in the New York State College for Teachers. He later served in the US Army in occupied Japan, teaching American GIs history and government as well as literacy classes. He took an MA in History at the University of Chicago in 1949 and a PhD in 1951.
Dr. Weinberg has taught at the Universities of Chicago, Kentucky, Michigan, and North Carolina, with visiting appointments at Bonn University in Germany and the US Air Force Academy. He has frequently lectured for the Extension Program of the Naval War College as well as at the Marine Corps University and the United States Military Academy at West Point.
He is author of many books including A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II (Cambridge University Press); World in the Balance: Behind the Scenes of World War II (University Press of New England); Germany, Hitler, and World War II: Essays in Modern German and World History (Cambridge University Press); Hitler's Foreign Policy 1933-1939: The Road to World War II (Enigma Press single- volume paperback available in Fall 2009); The Foreign Policy of Hitler's Germany (Prometheus Books); and Visions of Victory: The Hopes of Eight World War II Leaders (Cambridge University Press).
Dr. Weinberg currently serves as the William Rand Kenan, Jr. Professor Emeritus of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he has been a member of the history faculty since 1974. He lives with his wife in Efland, North Carolina. States Weinberg, "I am very grateful for the award and attribute much of the credit to the teachers at Hillcrest School in Swanage (England), Albany (New York), and Chicago who trained me wonderfully as well as to students, both undergraduate and graduate, who have challenged and inspired me over the years. And, of course, to all of the archivists who responded patiently to a very demanding visitor."
For more information, visit: tawanifoundation.org.
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