John Leonard Clive Explained

John Leonard Clive
Birth Name:Hans Leo Kleyff
Birth Date:25 September 1924
Birth Place:Berlin, Germany
Death Place:Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.
Fields:Historian
Workplaces:University of Chicago
Harvard University
Education:University of North Carolina (BA)
Harvard University (PhD)
Doctoral Advisors:)-->
Awards:National Book Award for Biography (1974)

John Leonard Clive (born Hans Leo Kleyff; September 25, 1924 – January 7, 1990) was an American historian. He was a professor at Harvard University and the University of Chicago. He is most well known for his biography of Thomas Babington Macaulay: The Shaping of the Historian, for which he won the National Book Award for Biography and History.

Biography

Born Hans Leo Kleyff (later anglicized to John Leonard Clive) in Berlin to German-Jewish parents, he attended the Französisches Gymnasium Berlin, before moving to England in 1937 where he went to Buxton College.[1] In 1940 he emigrated with his family to the United States, where he attended the University of North Carolina.[2] After his graduation he entered the army and joined the OSS.[3]

In 1952 Clive received his Ph.D. from Harvard University and began teaching there. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1957.[4] That year he published Scotch Reviewers: The Edinburgh Review, 1802–1815. in 1960 Clive moved to the University of Chicago, where he was an assistant and associate professor until returning to Harvard in 1965.[1] He would remain at Harvard for the rest of his career ultimately becoming the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of History and Literature in 1979.[5]

Clive won the National Book Award for Biography and History in 1974 for Thomas Babington Macaulay: The Shaping of the Historian, and was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as well.[6] Clive retired in 1989 and gave his last lecture that December. He died of a heart attack on January 7, 1990, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was posthumously awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism for his final book, Not by Fact Alone: Essays on the Writing and Reading of History.

Further reading

Andreas W. Daum, Hartmut Lehmann, James J. Sheehan (eds.), The Second Generation: Émigrés from Nazi Germany as Historians. With a Biobibliographic Guide. New York: Berghahn Books, 2016,, pp. 9‒10, 24, 33, 36, 109, 355‒56. (with short biography and bibliography)

Notes and References

  1. Fleming. Donald. 1990. John Leonard Clive. Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society. 102. 164–166. 25081022.
  2. Web site: In Memoriam John L. Clive. American Historical Association. September 7, 2016.
  3. Web site: Clive, John L. - [Serial Number] 34674336]. National Archives and Records Administration. September 7, 2016.
  4. Web site: John Clive. John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. 7 September 2016.
  5. News: Fowler. Glenn. John L. Clive, Harvard Historian And an Acclaimed Biographer, 65. September 7, 2016. New York Times. January 10, 1990.
  6. Web site: Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter B. American Academy of Arts and Sciences. September 7, 2016.