Andreas W. Daum is a German-American historian who specializes in modern German and transatlantic history, as well as the history of knowledge and global exploration.
Daum received his Ph.D. summa cum laude in 1995 from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, where he taught for six years as an assistant professor. In 1996, he joined the German Historical Institute Washington DC as a research fellow. From 2001 to 2002, Daum was a John F. Kennedy Memorial Fellow at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University. Since 2003, he has been a professor of European history at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo. He also served as an associate dean for undergraduate education in the provost's office. [1] In 2010–11, he was a visiting scholar at the BMW Center for German and European Studies at Georgetown University.
He is best known as a biographer of Alexander von Humboldt [2] and for his studies on popular science, emigrants from Nazi Germany, and the United States’ special relationship with "America’s Berlin". [3] His book Kennedy in Berlin highlights the role of emotions in the Cold War and provides a comprehensive explanation of John F. Kennedy's 1963 "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech. [4] [5]
In 2019, he was awarded the Humboldt Prize, a lifetime achievement award by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for international scientists and scholars. [6] In 2024, he received the Meyerson Award for Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching and Mentoring. [7] [8]
Daum has received fellowships and grants from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, American Philosophical Society, National Endowment for the Humanities, Smithsonian Institution, Gerda Henkel Foundation, German Academic Exchange Service, and the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes.
Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt was a German philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin. In 1949, the university was named after him and his younger brother, Alexander von Humboldt, a naturalist.
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt was a German polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher, and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835). Humboldt's quantitative work on botanical geography laid the foundation for the field of biogeography, while his advocacy of long-term systematic geophysical measurement pioneered modern geomagnetic and meteorological monitoring. Humboldt and Carl Ritter are both regarded as the founders of modern geography as they established it as an independent scientific discipline.
The Free University of Berlin is a public research university in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in West Berlin in 1948 with American support during the early Cold War period as a Western continuation of the Friedrich Wilhelm University, or the University of Berlin, whose traditions and faculty members it retained. The Friedrich Wilhelm University, being in East Berlin, faced strong communist repression; the Free University's name referred to West Berlin's status as part of the Western Free World, contrasting with communist-controlled East Berlin.
Carl Sigismund Kunth was a German botanist. He was also known as Karl Sigismund Kunth or anglicized as Charles Sigismund Kunth. He was one of the early systematic botanists who focused on studying the plants of the Americas. Kunth's notable contributions include the publication of Nova genera et species plantarum quas in peregrinatione ad plagam aequinoctialem orbis novi collegerunt Bonpland et Humboldt. This work spanned seven volumes and was published between 1815 and 1825.
Carl Ludwig Willdenow was a German botanist, pharmacist, and plant taxonomist. He is considered one of the founders of phytogeography, the study of the geographic distribution of plants. Willdenow was also a mentor of Alexander von Humboldt, one of the earliest and best known phytogeographers. He also influenced Christian Konrad Sprengel, who pioneered the study of plant pollination and floral biology.
Karl August Möbius was a German zoologist who was a pioneer in the field of ecology and a director of the Natural History Museum in Berlin.
Fritz Richard Stern was a German-born American historian of German history, Jewish history and historiography. He was a University Professor and a provost at New York's Columbia University. His work focused on the complex relationships between Germans and Jews in the 19th and 20th centuries and on the rise of National Socialism in Germany during the first half of the 20th century.
Henriette Julie Herz was a German writer, best known for the "salonnieres" or literary salons that she started with a group of emancipated Jews in Prussia.
The Humboldt Research Award, also known informally as the Humboldt Prize, is an award given by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany to internationally renowned scientists and scholars who work outside of Germany in recognition of their lifetime's research achievements. Recipients are "academics whose fundamental discoveries, new theories or insights have had a significant impact on their own discipline and who are expected to continue producing cutting-edge academic achievements in the future". The prize is currently valued at €60,000 with the possibility of further support during the prize winner's life. Up to one hundred such awards are granted each year. Nominations must be submitted by established academics in Germany. As of 2023, over 2,000 awards have been granted.
Humboldtian science refers to a movement in science in the 19th century closely connected to the work and writings of German scientist, naturalist, and explorer Alexander von Humboldt. It maintained a certain ethics of precision and observation, which combined scientific field work with the sensitivity and aesthetic ideals of the age of Romanticism. Like Romanticism in science, it was rather popular in the 19th century. The term was coined by Susan Faye Cannon in 1978. The example of Humboldt's life and his writings allowed him to reach out beyond the academic community with his natural history and address a wider audience with popular science aspects. It has supplanted the older Baconian method, related as well to a single person, Francis Bacon.
The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation is a foundation that promotes international academic cooperation between select scientists and scholars from Germany and from abroad. It was established by the government of the Federal Republic of Germany and is funded by the Federal Foreign Office, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development as well as other national and international partners.
Peter Jelavich is an author and Professor of History at the Johns Hopkins University. He is the son of historians Barbara and Charles Jelavich. Previously, Jelavich was professor of history and chair of the Department of Germanic Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. He was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows (1979-1981) and he received his PhD from Princeton University in 1982. Jelavich specializes in the cultural and intellectual history of Europe since the Enlightenment, with emphasis on Germany. His areas of interest include the interaction of elite and popular culture; the history of mass culture and the media; and the application of cultural and social theories to historical study. Jelavich served previously as President of the Friends of the German Historical Institute until his term ended in 2019; as of 2020, Kenneth Ledford is the President of the Friends of the GHI. He is the author of Munich and Theatrical Modernism: Politics, Playwriting, and Performance, 1890-1914 (1985), Berlin Cabaret (1993), Berlin Alexanderplatz: Radio, Film, and the Death of Weimar Culture (2006). He was the 1987 recipient of the Herbert Baxter Adams Prize and is a 2013 recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Research Award.
Georg Gerson Iggers was an American historian of modern Europe, historiography, and European intellectual history.
Otto Eduard Vincenz Ule was a German writer, known for his popularization of natural sciences, and liberal politician. He was the father of botanist Ernst Heinrich Georg Ule (1854–1915) and geographer Wilhelm Ule (1861–1940).
Karen Radner is an Austrian Assyriologist, the Alexander von Humboldt Professor of Ancient History at the University of Munich.
The Alexander von Humboldt statue is a monumental statue in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Located in Humboldt Park, a major urban park in the Humboldt Park neighborhood, the statue depicts Alexander von Humboldt, a Prussian polymath and the park's namesake. The statue was dedicated in 1892.
The Alexander von Humboldt statue is a monumental statue of Alexander von Humboldt in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Located in Fairmount Park, the statue was completed in 1871 and donated to the city in 1876.
Friedrich Anton von Heynitz was an aristocrat and cameralist in Saxony who founded the oldest mining school in the world, the Bergakademie Freiberg. He studied mining and was involved in reforming the mining and metallurgy industry in Prussia. His economic principles were of a moderate mercantilism, anti-monopolistic, and supported an enlightened absolutism.
Liliane Weissberg is an American literary scholar and cultural historian specializing in German-Jewish studies and German and American literature. She is currently the Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor in Arts and Sciences and Professor of German and Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. She received, among others, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Humboldt Research Award for her research on German-Jewish literature and culture and the Berlin Prize of the American Academy in Berlin, and holds an honorary degree from the University of Graz.
Andrea Bréard is a German historian of mathematics and sinologist specializing in Chinese mathematics. She is Alexander von Humboldt Professor of Sinology in the Department of Classical World and Asian Cultures at the University of Erlangen–Nuremberg.