scholarly achievements in history
Professor Ramsay MacMullen was honored for his lifetime of scholarly achievements at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association (AHA).
MacMullen, the Dunham Professor Emeritus of History and professor emeritus of classics, was honored with an Award for Scholarly Distinction at the AHA meeting. Two other members of the Yale community received prizes for their latest books at that time -- Rolena Adorno, professor of Spanish and Portuguese (see related story); and Karen Ordahl Kupperman, visiting professor of history.
MacMullen is an expert in the social, economic, administrative and religious history of the Roman empire. His books include "Soldier and Civilian in the Later Roman Empire," "Enemies of the Roman Order: Treason, Unrest and Alienation in the Empire" and "Corruption and the Decline of Rome." He joined the Yale faculty in 1967 and retired in 1993.
"Ramsay MacMullen is the greatest historian of the Roman Empire alive today," reads the award citation, adding that the scholar "has captured the Roman Empire from the Classicists and brought it as booty to us."
Thanks to MacMullen's work, notes the citation, "[W]e think of Roman power as personal power, and are no longer convinced by depictions of the Roman state as a bureaucratic machine. We understand Roman social relations, not only how Roman insiders dealt with each other but also the ways the myriad outsiders in a mosaic empire became Roman, and not only how the powerful worked their will but also the ways in which women, peasants, and the lower classes were connected, influential, and despised. We comprehend how the corruption of these fundamental social relations contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire in the West. ..."
The AHA citation also applauds MacMullen's "compelling and influential scholarship, his championing of historical methods and questions in a fought-over historical era, his appearance in the public realm as a scourge to politically motivated falsehood about antiquity, his exacting care for his teaching, his devotion to his students, his untiring administrative service to Yale, and now his indefatigable retirement ..."
Kupperman, who is at Yale on leave from New York University, was awarded the Atlantic History Prize for her book, "Indians and English: Facing Off in Early America." The annual prize recognizes outstanding historical writing that explores aspects of integration of Atlantic worlds before the 20th century.
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