On the passing of Pauline Maier
Chris Beneke Pauline Maier passed away Monday . Her academic title was William Kenan Jr. Professor of History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It’s a distinguished position, but hardly does justice to the person who filled it. I didn’t know Professor Maier was ill. Frankly, it’s hard to imagine her in a non-effervescent condition. Every other observation I’ve encountered since Monday affirms the testimony of my own experience: Maier was irrepressibly charming, ceaselessly brilliant, and blessed with a thunderous, seminar-shaking laugh. Professor Maier published important books at a stately pace. There were four major monographs, one per decade. The first two changed our understanding of pre-Revolutionary politics ; the third upended standard interpretations of the Declaration of Independence ; the fourth provided the first full account of how the U.S. Constitution was ratified . Each was definitive, the sort of book that every early American historian n...