Sally J. Marks (January 18, 1931 – January 14, 2018) was an American historian and author specialising in the field of post-First World War diplomatic history.
Marks lectured in history at Rhode Island College, receiving the Mary Tucker Thorp College Professorship in 1983.[2] Her research during the 1970s focused on then-newly opened archives of diplomatic correspondence from the period during and immediately after the First World War. Her discoveries in these archives cast doubt on the then-popular viewpoint advocated by John Maynard Keynes that the Versailles treaty had been excessively punitive. In 1988 she took early retirement from teaching at the college to focus full-time on research. From the 1990s onwards Marks suffered from myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, and in later life from poor eyesight.[1]
Historian William R. Keylor of Boston University said of her work that it had "...precipitated what might be called the post-Keynesian version of the economic portion of the peace settlement of 1919 that has won widespread acceptance in the profession".[3]
Awards and honors
Marks received the George Louis Beer Prize for her 1981 book Innocent Abroad: Belgium at the Paris Peace Conference.[4] She also received the Phi Alpha Theta senior scholar award, as well as fellowships from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies.[1]
Books
Marks was the author of books including:
The Illusion of Peace: International Relations in Europe 1918–1933 (Macmillan, 1976)[5]
Innocent Abroad: Belgium at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 (University of North Carolina Press, 1981)[6]
The Ebbing of European Ascendancy: An International History of the World, 1914–1945 (Arnold, 2002)[7]
Paul Hymans: Belgium (Makers of the Modern World: The Peace Conferences of 1919–23 and Their Aftermath, Haus Publishing, 2010)[8]
References
^ abcFink, Carole (September 4, 2018). "Sally Marks (1931–2018)". Perspectives on History. American Historical Association. Retrieved February 29, 2024.
^Keylor, William R. (January 19, 2018). "A Tribute to Sally Marks"(PDF). H-Diplo. H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online. Retrieved February 29, 2024.
