Donald Kagan

Kagan was born in Kuršėnai, Lithuania, on May 1, 1932,^[1][2] to a Jewish family. His father, Shmuel, died before Kagan turned two years old, and his mother, Leah (Benjamin), subsequently emigrated to the United States with Kagan and his sister. He grew up in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn.^[1] He attended Thomas Jefferson High School, where he played football,^[1] before becoming the first person in his family to go to college.^[2] He graduated from Brooklyn College in 1954, received a master's degree in classics from Brown University in 1955, and a Ph.D. in history from Ohio State University in 1958.^[2][3]

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External videos
Booknotes interview with Kagan on On the Origins of War, March 12, 1995, C-SPAN
Presentation by Donald Kagan and Frederick Kagan on While America Sleeps, November 29, 2000, C-SPAN
Presentation by Kagan on The Peloponnesian War, October 3, 2003, C-SPAN

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Donald Kagan started to teach at Capital University during his last year during his work on his doctorate.^[4] He then briefly taught at Pennsylvania State University, and then Cornell University from 1960 to 1969, where he received two teaching awards.^[5] He started working at Yale University in 1969 and he remained there for the next 44 years until his retirement in 2013.

At Yale he held a series of endowed professorships of increasing seniority: the Colgate Professor of History and Classics (1979), the Bass Professor of History, Classics, and Western Civilization (1991), the Hillhouse Professor of History and Classics (1995), and finally the Sterling Professor of Classics and History, Yale's highest faculty honor, from 2002 until his retirement.^[6] He also held several administrative posts at Yale: he served twice as chairman of the Department of Classics, was Master of Timothy Dwight College from 1976 to 1978, Acting Director of Athletics from 1987 to 1988, and Dean of Yale College from 1989 to 1992.^[7]

His course Historical Studies in the Origins of War, launched shortly after he joined Yale's faculty, drew hundreds of students each fall for decades and formed the basis of a book he published in 1995 called On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace.^[8][9][10] He also taught Introduction to Ancient Greek History, recorded for Open Yale Courses in 2007,^[11] as well as upper level History and Classical Civilization seminars ranging on topics from Thucydides to the Lacedaemonian hegemony.^[12][13]

Known for his prolific research on the Peloponnesian War; Kagan is also famous for his work On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace, a comparative history examining four major conflicts (the Peloponnesian War, World War I, the Second Punic War, and World War II) and one non-conflict (the Cuban Missile Crisis) with the purpose of identifying how and why wars do or do not begin. Remarking in 2015 on the work, Kagan summarized the causes of war by quoting Thucydides: "You know, Thucydides has this great insight. I wish I could get people to pay attention – he has one of his speakers at the beginning of the war say, 'Why do people go to war? Out of fear, honor, and interest.' Well, everybody knows interest, and fear is very credible. Nobody takes honor seriously."^[14] Kagan believes honor – better understood as "prestige" – was crucial in beginning World War I, for example.^[14]

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) awarded Kagan the National Humanities Medal in 2002, and selected him to deliver the 2005 Jefferson Lecture.^[15] Kagan titled his lecture "In Defense of History";^[16] he argued that history is of primary importance in the study of the humanities.^[17][18] In his The New Yorker review, George Steiner said of Kagan's four-volume history of the Peloponnesian War: "The temptation to acclaim Kagan's four volumes as the foremost work of history produced in North America in this century is vivid."^[1]

Donald Kagan's political views underwent a significant shift around 1969, moving from liberalism towards neoconservatism. This change occurred following student protests at Cornell University, which led to the establishment of a Black Studies program following the student occupation of Willard Straight Hall. Kagan felt the university administration's response was inadequate, deeply impacting his political outlook. He became one of the original signatories of the 1997 Statement of Principles by the neoconservative think tank Project for the New American Century, co-founded by his son Robert.^[19][20] In the lead-up to the 2000 presidential elections, Kagan and his other son, Frederick, published While America Sleeps, advocating for increased defense spending.^[1]

Kagan married Myrna Dabrusky in 1954. They met while studying at Thomas Jefferson High School together,^[1] and remained married for 62 years until her death in 2017.^[2] Together, they had two children: Robert and Frederick.^[1][2]

Kagan died on August 6, 2021, at a retirement home in Washington, D.C. He was 89 years old.^[1][2][21]

• 1972–1975 Chairman of the classics department, Yale University^[22]
• 1976–1978 Master, Timothy Dwight College^[23]
• 1987–1988 Acting Director of Athletics, Yale University^[12]
• 1988–1993 Member of the National Council on the Humanities^[24]
• 1989–1992 Dean, Yale College^[1]
• 2002–2013 Sterling Professor of Classics and History, Yale^[25]

• Kagan, Donald. (1962). Decline and fall of the Roman empire: why did it collapse?. Lexington, Mass.: Heath.
• Kagan, Donald. (1965). The Great Dialogue: A History of Greek Political Thought from Homer to Polybius. New York: Free Press. OCLC 63980809
• Kagan, Donald. (1965). Sources in greek political thought: from Homer to Polybius. New York: Free Press.
• Kagan, Donald. (1966). Problems in ancient history 1 : The ancient Near East and Greece. London: Collier-Macmillan
• Kagan, Donald. (1966). Problems in ancient history 2 : The Roman world. London: Collier-Macmillan
• Kagan, Donald. (1969). The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-0501-7.
• Kagan, Donald. (1974). The Archidamian War. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-0889-X.
• Kagan, Donald. (1975). Studies in the Greek historians: in memory of Adam Parry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
• Kagan, Donald. (1981). The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-1367-2.
• Kagan, Donald. (1987). The Fall of the Athenian Empire. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-1935-2
• Kagan, Donald. (1991). Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy. New York: The Free Press. ISBN 0-684-86395-2.
• Kagan, Donald, L. Pearce Williams, and Brian Tierney (1992). Great issues in Western civilization: 2 : From Louis XIV through the cold war. New York: McGraw-Hill
• Kagan, Donald. (1995). On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-42374-8.
• Kagan, Donald and Kagan, Frederick. (2000). While America Sleeps. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-20624-0.
• Kagan, Donald, Craig, Albert M., Graham, William A., Ozment, Steven, and Turner, Frank M. (2000). The Heritage of World Civilizations. ISBN 978-0130160430
• Kagan, Donald, Ozment, Steven, and Turner, Frank M. (2003). The Western Heritage. New York: Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-182839-8.
• Kagan, Donald. (2003). The Peloponnesian War. New York: Viking Press. ISBN 0-670-03211-5.
• Kagan, Donald. (2009). Thucydides: The Reinvention of History. New York: Viking Press. ISBN 0-670-02129-6.
• Kagan, Donald. (2013). Men of Bronze: Hoplite Warfare in Ancient Greece. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-1400846306