Theodore K. Rabb (March 5, 1937 – January 7, 2019) was an American historian specializing in the early modern period of European history. He was a Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at Princeton University. He was one of the leading scholars in the field of 16th- and 17th-century Europe, focusing on varying topics such as climate history and food history.
Education
Born in Teplice-Sanov, Czechoslovakia, Rabb was raised in London. He studied at The Queen's College, Oxford (B.A., 1958; M.A., 1962) and at Princeton University (M.A., 1960; Ph.D., 1961). His Ph.D. advisers were Elmore Harris Harbison and Frank Craven. Rabb was a professor of history at Stanford University, Northwestern University, and Harvard University before becoming an associate professor at Princeton University in 1967.
Career
He was a member of the Princeton faculty since 1967, teaching in both the History Department and in Humanistic Studies, an interdisciplinary program. He also directed Princeton's Community College programs.
In 1970, the same year he received a Guggenheim Fellowship, he co-founded the Journal of Interdisciplinary History with Robert I. Rotberg. He was also an advisor for the 1993 television series Renaissance. He was a member of the board of editors of the journals Computers and the Humanities, Computer Studies in the Humanities and Verbal Behavior, and Climatic Change.
He also served on the boards of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Save Venice, and he chaired the National Council for History Education and the New Jersey Council for the Humanities.
Bibliography
Books
The Thirty Years' War: Problems of Motive, Extent, and Effect (Boston, 1964) Enterprise and Empire: Merchant and Gentry Investment in the Expansion of England, 1575-1630 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967) The Struggle for Stability in Early Modern Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975) Renaissance Lives: Portraits of an Age (New York: Pantheon Books, 1993) Jacobean Gentleman: Sir Edwin Sandys, 1561-1629 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998) Emergence of International Business 1200-1800, Volume III: Enterprise and Empire (New York: Taylor & Francis, 1999) The Last Days of the Renaissance & the March to Modernity (New York: Basic Books, 2006) Why Does Michelangelo Matter?: A Historian's Questions about the Visual Arts (Palo Alto, California: The Society for the Promotion of Science and Scholarship, 2018). A collection of reviews of art history books and art exhibitions.
As editor
With Robert I. Rotberg
The Family in History: Interdisciplinary Essays (New York: Harper & Row, 1973) Marriage and Fertility: Studies in Interdisciplinary History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980) Climate and History: Studies in Interdisciplinary History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981) Industrialization and Urbanization: Studies in Interdisciplinary History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981) The New History, the 1980s and Beyond: Studies in Interdisciplinary History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982) Hunger and History: The Impact of Changing Food Production and Consumption Patterns on Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985) Population and Economy: Population and History from the Traditional to the Modern World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986) Art and History: Images and Their Meaning (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) The Origin and Prevention of Major Wars (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989)
with Ezra Suleiman
The Making and Unmaking of Democracy: Lessons from History and World Politics (New York: Routledge, 2002)