Chester G. Starr

{{Infobox academic|birth_date=October 5, 1914|birth_place=[[Centralia, Missouri]], US|death_date=September 22, 1999|death_place=[[Ann Arbor]], Michigan, US|discipline=[[history]]|sub_discipline=[[ancient history]]|main_interests=[[ancient art]] and [[archeology]] of the [[Greco-Roman civilization]]|alma_mater=[[Cornell University]]|workplaces={{hlist|[[University of Illinois]]|[[University of Michigan]]|[[U.S. Army]]}}|notable_works=''A History of the Ancient World''}}

'''Chester G. Starr''' (October 5, 1914, in [[Centralia, Missouri]] – September 22, 1999, in [[Ann Arbor]], Michigan) was an American [[historian]]. An authority on [[ancient history]], he specialized in the [[ancient art]] and [[archeology]] of the [[Greco-Roman civilization]]. According to the University of Michigan, he was "the acknowledged dean of ancient history in America."<ref>http://ur.umich.edu/9900/Oct04_99/19.htm {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303193922/http://ur.umich.edu/9900/Oct04_99/19.htm |date=2016-03-03 }}. Rtvd 2013-11-03.</ref>

Starr studied at [[Cornell University]], with [[Max Ludwig Wolfram Laistner]]. Between 1940 and 1953 he was lecturer in history at the [[University of Illinois]], [[Urbana, Illinois|Urbana]]. He became a professor in the same department, a position he held until 1970, when he moved to the [[University of Michigan]]. From 1973 to 1985 he held the Bentley Chair at Michigan. In 1974 he became the first president of the ''[[American Association of Ancient Historians]]''.

During [[World War II]] Starr served in the history section of the U.S. Army, posted to the headquarters of the [[United States Fifth Army]] in Italy from 1942 to 1946. As a result of that commission, he wrote a nine-volume compilation entitled ''Fifth Army History'', and a popular book about it titled ''From Salerno to the Alps'' (1948).

Among his historical works are twenty-one books, dozens of articles and over one hundred book reviews. His best-known text, ''A History of the Ancient World'', was reissued with successive enlargements between 1965 and 1991. His historiographical methodology has been described as [[Hegelian]], especially in ''Civilization and the Caesars: The Intellectual Revolution in the Roman Empire'' (1954). In what has been called his greatest work: ''The Origins of Greek Civilization'' (1961), he dismantled the [[Nordic theory]], which sought to interpret Greek cultural achievements in terms of a [[master race]]. His approach focused on individuals as agents of historical change, in contrast to the dominant methodology of the time: the [[Annales School]] and the [[Braudel]]ian concept of ''[[longue durée]]''.

Among his other works are ''The Awakening of the Greek Historical Spirit'' (1968), ''Economic Growth of Early Greece'' (1977), ''The Beginnings of Imperial Rome: Rome in the Mid-Republic'' (1980), ''The Flawed Mirror'' (1983) and ''Past and Future in Ancient History'' (1987).<ref>Josiah Ober [http://www.stanford.edu/group/dispersed_author/docs/ChesterStarr.pdf Article in ''The Independent''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121022174143/http://www.stanford.edu/group/dispersed_author/docs/ChesterStarr.pdf |date=2012-10-22 }} 15 October 1999.</ref>

== Notes == {{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Starr, Chester}} [[Category:Historians of the United States]] [[Category:1914 births]] [[Category:1999 deaths]] [[Category:University of Michigan faculty]] [[Category:20th-century American historians]] [[Category:People from Centralia, Missouri]] [[Category:Cornell University alumni]] [[Category:University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty]]