Harold E. Lurier
{{Short description|American historian, academic and translator}}
Harold Edmond Lurier (September 28, 1923{{spaced ndash}}June 30, 2000) was an American historian, academic and translator. He was known for his translations of Greek poetry and Chronicle of the Morea.{{cite journal|title=Obituaries|url=http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/1100/1100obits.html|journal=University of Pennsylvania Gazette|date=November–December 2000}}
Biography
Lurier was born in Worcester, Massachusetts. His paternal grandparents were Russian Jewish emigrants, and his maternal grandparents were Greek. After matriculating at Clark University in 1941, he served as a Greek interpreter for the U.S. Army during World War II from 1943 to 1946, then received his B.A. (1948), M.A. (1949) and Ph.D. (1955), in Medieval History, all at the University of Pennsylvania.
He first held an academic position at Princeton University, and then moved in 1956 to Pace University, where he spent the rest of his career in the Social Sciences Department. He retired in 1997.{{citation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AW6MAAAAQBAJ&pg=PT340|contribution=Harold E. Lurier: In Memoriam|first=William J.|last=Adams|title=Reflections on the University Scene|publisher=Xlibris Corporation|year=2008|isbn=9781469107332}}.[http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/1100/1100obits.html Alumni obituaries], University of Pennsylvania Gazette, retrieved 2015-07-31.Author biography from {{citation|title=A History of the Religions of the World|first=Harold E.|last=Lurier|publisher=Xlibris Corporation|year=2002|at=rear cover|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0Sw8XlRPIv0C&pg=PA301|isbn=9781401074081}}.{{Self-published inline|certain=yes|date=December 2017}}
Lurier won Pace's Kenan Award for Teaching Excellence in 1962.[http://www.pace.edu/provost/kenan-award-teaching-excellence Kenan Award] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150613133827/http://www.pace.edu/provost/kenan-award-teaching-excellence |date=2015-06-13 }}, Pace University, retrieved 2015-07-30. In the early 1970s, after tensions inflamed by a failed attempt to unionize the Pace faculty, Lurier collaborated with mathematician William J. Adams to develop the Lurier–Adams plan for faculty promotion and tenure decision-making at Pace.{{citation|title=The Nitty-Gritty in the Life of a University|first=William J.|last=Adams|publisher=Xlibris Corporation|year=2007|isbn=9781425709143|pages=13–32|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lMY1_IhmLHsC&pg=PA13}}.
Speculum praised his annotated translation of Chronicle of the Morea into English for its accuracy and for conveying "the flavor" of the Greek. Lurier is among a group of medievalists arguing that the original of the Chronicle was written in medieval French.{{citation|last1=Setton|first1=Kenneth Meyer|title=The Papacy and the Levant, 1204-1571: The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries|date=1976|publisher=American Philosophical Society|isbn=0871691140|page=156}}{{citation|title=Mediaeval Greece|first=Nicolas|last=Cheetham|publisher=Yale University Press|year=1981|isbn=9780300105391|page=318|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=htxy53T7QLkC&pg=PA318|quote=H. E. Lurier ... argues strongly that both the Greek and the French versions are derived from a lost French prototype}}.
Lurier died in New York in 2000.
Bibliography
- Crusaders as Conquerors: The Chronicle of Morea, Columbia University Press (1964), {{ISBN|978-0-231-02298-9}}. This book is an annotated translation from the original Greekvverse version of Chronicle of the Morea (Greek: Το χρονικόν του Μορέως), a famous historical account of the Frankish principality of Morea in southern Greece, written in the 14th century.{{cite journal|last1=Topping|first1=Peter|title=Crusaders as Conquerors: The Chronicle of Morea (book review)|journal=Speculum|date=October 1965|volume=40|issue=4|page=737|doi=10.2307/2851426|jstor=2851426}}Crusaders as Conquerors is found in 594 libraries, according to [https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/412856 WorldCat]. It was reviewed by Topping, Peter (October 1965), Speculum 40 (4): 737–742, {{doi|10.2307/2851426}}, by Brundage, James A. (April 1966), Catholic Historical Review 52 (1): 112–113, and by Rathsack, Mogens (1971), Historisk Tidsskrift 12 (5): 505–506 [https://tidsskrift.dk/index.php/historisktidsskrift/article/view/31962/61652 (in Danish)]{{Dead link|date=July 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}.
- The Emergence of the Western World /Book, Maps and Prints , (1994). Paperback: 288 pages, Publisher: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company; Pap/Map edition (June 1994), {{ISBN|978-0-8403-9963-2}}
- Basic Facts of History of Western Civilization, Prehistory to 1600, 63 pages, general editor: John E. Flaherty. Published 1963 by Collier Books in New York .
References
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Category:Writers from Worcester, Massachusetts
Category:University of Pennsylvania alumni
Category:American medievalists
Category:20th-century American historians
Category:American male non-fiction writers
Category:American people of Russian-Jewish descent
Category:American writers of Greek descent
Category:20th-century American translators
Category:Historians from Massachusetts
Category:20th-century American male writers