MANUEL, Frank Edward 1910-2003

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born September 12, 1910, in Boston, MA; died April 23, 2003, in Boston, MA. Historian, educator, and author. Manuel considered himself an intellectual historian, and was best known for his books about philosophy and utopian ideals. Educated at Harvard University, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1933, he also studied at the École des Hautes Études Politiques et Sociales in Paris. Returning to Harvard, he was a member of the history department staff before World War II. During the war he was an intelligence officer and French interpreter; a wartime accident cost him a leg that had to be amputated. He later wrote about his war experiences in his 2000 memoir, Scenes from the End: The Last Days of World War II in Europe. After working for the National Defense Commission and the Office of Price Administration as a researcher and administrator, Manuel resumed his career in academia at what is now Case Western University. From 1949 to 1965 he was professor of history and moral psychology at Brandeis University. He then taught at New York University for eleven years before returning to Brandeis in 1977, retiring as professor emeritus in 1986. Manuel was fascinated by the history of ideas, and one of his best-known works is Utopian Thought in the Western World (1979), cowritten with his wife, which won the American Book Award. He also wrote three books about Isaac Newton, and other works about philosophy, religion, and science, including The Age of Reason (1951), Shapes of Philosophical History (1965), The Changing of the Gods (1983), and A Requiem for Karl Marx (1995). Furthermore, Manuel was the editor of such books as Utopias and Utopian Thought (1966) and French Utopias: An Anthology of Ideal Societies (1966), which he also translated.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Boston Globe, April 24, 2003, p. C16.

New York Times, May 4, 2003, p. A35.