History prof. Brown wins lifetime achievement award

Brown said in a University statement that he was “bowled over by the news” and that receiving the award was “a true honor in light of those who have preceded us.”

The award recognizes achievement in disciplines that are not eligible for Nobel prizes, such as history and politics. The last Princeton professor to receive the prize was emeritus East Asian studies and history professor Ying-Shih Yu in 2006.

“Both Brown, 73, and Thapar, 77, brought dramatically new perspectives to understanding vast sweeps of geographical territory and a millennium or more of time in, respectively, Europe and the Middle East, and in the Indian subcontinent,” according to a Library of Congress statement.

Brown, who has taught at the University since 1983 and received the University’s President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching in 2000, emphasized that the award is a testament to scholars who have come before him.

“I always feel when it comes to a personal award, it isn’t so much the person who is being acknowledged as the generation,” he said. “This has been a remarkable generation in the humanities precisely because we have the tools to understand the traditions from which we and other regions come.”

“We are in an age which questions traditions,” Brown added, “and I feel particularly privileged to have grown up among other scholars in so many other disciplines who have really strained every nerve intellectually to take a new look at things which we had taken for granted.”

After receiving nominations from institutions around the globe, a Library of Congress panel recommends individuals whose published work and peer reviews demonstrate “unusual distinction within a given area of inquiry and across disciplines in the human sciences,” according to the Library of Congress website.

The prize is one of several that recognize both original research and a contribution to the field of history, history department chair William Jordan explained.

“In terms of the specific content of Peter Brown’s research, I think it’s almost peerless,” he added. “In terms of his contributions to the community of historians in general, I think he is one of the most valuable persons.”

Jordan said that Brown’s most important accomplishment is the creation of the study of late antiquity as a field of historical research and teaching, transforming the way historians understand the period between 300 and 700 AD.

“[His receipt of the award] signals what we think we’ve known for a long time: that we have in Peter Brown one of the leaders in the field,” Jordan added. “He brings great luster to the department.”

“He was one of the most inspirational professors I had when I was [at the University],” history major Emily McGibbon ’01 said. “He just knew a lot about everything.”

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“The man knew everything,” said Thomas Barry ’06, whose thesis Brown advised. “In the history department, he’s something of a legend, so revered for his knowledge and ability to work with students.”

Peter Austin ’93 said that it was incredibly humbling yet thrilling to have Brown as his adviser.

“Working with him brought me my greatest academic happiness and fulfillment,” he said. “He could not have imbued me with a greater sense of wonder with regard to the material we were going over.”

“My experience working with him encouraged me to tell friends of mine who were a few years behind me that they ought to think about late antiquity as an area of study,” Austin added.