Lynn Thorndike

Lynn Thorndike Born (24 July 1882, in Lynn, Massachusetts, USA – Died 28 December 1965, Columbia University Club, New York City) was an American historian of medieval science and alchemy. He was the son of a clergyman, Edward R. Thorndike, and the younger brother of Ashley Horace Thorndike, an American educator and expert on William Shakespeare, and Edward Lee Thorndike, known for being the father of modern educational psychology.

Thorndike studied at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut (Bachelor of Arts, 1902), and then medieval history at Columbia University (Master of Arts 1903, Doctorate 1905). Thorndike's doctoral dissertation (1905) was about "The Place of Magic in the Intellectual History of Europe", which he went on to link with the historical development of experimental science.

He began teaching medieval history at Northwestern University in 1907. He moved to Western Reserve University in 1909 and stayed there until 1924. Columbia University lured him away in fall 1924 and he taught there until he retired from teaching in 1950.

After retiring from teaching, Thorndike continued to publish for an additional ten years and in 1957 received the Sarton Medal from the History of Science Society. He served as the president there in 1929 and also served as president of the American Historical Association.

Counter to Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt who argued that the Italian Renaissance was a separate phase, Thorndike believed that most of the political, social, moral and religious phenomena which are commonly defined as Renaissance seemed to be almost equally characteristic of Italy at any time from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries.

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