Biography
Bentley was born in Birmingham, Alabama, USA, the oldest of three boys. His father was an engineer, and his mother was a homemaker and entrepreneur. He attended Brainerd High School in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and then went on to the University of Tennessee where he obtained a Bachelors Degree in 1971, and then his Masters (1974) and PhD (1976) from the University of Minnesota. Following this he began working as an Assistant Professor at the University of Hawaii in 1976. He rose to Associate Professor in 1982, and full professor in 1987. In 1990 he was the founding editor of the Journal of World History, with Elton Daniel and Daniel Kwok as editorial board members, and Herbert F. Ziegler as the book review editor. The University released a series of monographs on world history, Perspectives on the Global Past, and then became the headquarters for the World History Association. Bentley and Ziegler were also co-authors of the college-level world history textbook Traditions and Encounters which as of 2011 is in its 5th edition.
In 2002, Bentley became the Director at the Center for World History.
Read more about this topic: Jerry H. Bentley
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, “memoirs to serve for a history,” which is but materials to serve for a mythology.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A biography is like a handshake down the years, that can become an arm-wrestle.”
—Richard Holmes (b. 1945)
“Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.”
—Rebecca West [Cicily Isabel Fairfield] (1892–1983)