Manuel, Frank Edward

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MANUEL, FRANK EDWARD

MANUEL, FRANK EDWARD (1910–2003), U.S. historian. Manuel was born in Boston. He was professor of history at Brandeis from 1949 to 1965 and at New York University, and then again at Brandeis from 1977 to 1986. Upon his retirement from Brandeis, he was named professor emeritus. Manuel's chief field of specialization was the history of ideas. Regarded as one of the most respected scholars of European intellectual history of the last century, Manuel was well known for his study of utopias of the 18th and 19th centuries. He also wrote about modern history, Christian-Jewish intellectual relations, psychohistory, and eminent thinkers such as Isaac Newton and Karl Marx. His book Realities of American-Palestine Relations (1949) was an important contribution to the understanding of American policies in Palestine from 1832. His Utopian Thought in the Western World (1979), which he co-authored with his wife, Fritzie P. Manuel, won the American Book Award in History, the Melcher Award, and Phi Beta Kappa's Ralph Waldo Emerson Award.

Manuel's other publications include The Age of Reason (1951), The 18th Century Confronts the Gods (1959), The Prophets of Paris (1962), Shapes of Philosophical History (1965), A Portrait of Isaac Newton (1968), The Changing of the Gods (1983), The Broken Staff: Judaism through Christian Eyes (1992), and A Requiem for Karl Marx (1995).

bibliography:

R. Bienvenu, In the Presence of the Past: Essays in Honor of Frank E. Manuel (1991)

[Ruth Beloff (2nd ed.)]

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