Obit: Classicist, scholar & warrior Bernard Knox 17, August 2010
Posted by thegulfblog.com in Random.Tags: Bernard Knox, Obituary, Spanish Civil War
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The New York Times ran a suitably glowing and reverential obituary of Bernard M. W. Knox who died on 22nd July 2010. He was 95.
If one was to have the ability to manufacture a romantic yet steely and honoured career for an academic then one would most likely write the life of Bernard Knox. American born but raised in the U.K., Knox studied – what else? – Classics at – where else ? – Cambridge. He then left to fight in the most romantic war of his age, the Spanish Civil War. Later he served in the U.S. Army in World War Two where, as a part of an O.S.S. detachment, he parachuted into France and worked with the resistance before working with the Italian partisans.
After returning to the U.S. and winning the Bronze Star and the Croix De Guerre, he once again studied Classics at Yale earning his doctorate in 1948. He became full Professor in 1959 and in 1961 started the Harvard affiliated Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington.
In addition to writing numerous celebrated books (many still in print today) he regularly featured in the New York Review of Books and won various scholarly prizes.
Hat tip: Abu Muwawama
The Gulf blog 
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