Robert Roswell Palmer

Robert Roswell Palmer (January 11, 1909 – June 11, 2002), commonly known as R. R. Palmer, was a distinguished American historian at Princeton and Yale universities, who specialized in eighteenth-century France. His most influential work of scholarship, The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760–1800 (1959 and 1964), examined an age of democratic revolution that swept the Atlantic civilization between 1760 and 1800. He was awarded the Bancroft Prize in History for the first volume. Palmer also achieved distinction as a history text writer.

Born in Chicago, Illinois, Palmer accelerated through the public schools. By winning a citywide contest for a play written in Latin, he earned a full scholarship to the University of Chicago where he studied with the historian Louis Gottschalk and earned his bachelor's degree (Ph.B.) in 1931. He received his Ph.D. in History from Cornell University three years later, studying with Carl L. Becker. His dissertation was The French Idea of American Independence on the Eve of the French Revolution – "published/created" 1934.

Palmer began teaching at Princeton University as an instructor in 1936, and worked there for nearly three decades, becoming a full professor. He was dean of arts and sciences (1963–1966) at Washington University in St. Louis, then returned to teaching and writing at Yale, where he retired as professor emeritus. Palmer had visiting professorships at numerous universities, including Berkeley, Chicago, Colorado and Michigan. After retiring in 1977, he returned to Princeton as a guest scholar at its Institute for Advanced Study.

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