Hendrik Willem van Loon

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Hendrik Willem van Loon (January 14, 1882 – March 11, 1944) was a Dutch-American historian and journalist.

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[edit] Life and works

Born in Rotterdam, he went to the United States in 1903 to study at Cornell University. He was a correspondent during the Russian Revolution of 1905 and in Belgium in 1914 at the start of World War I. He later became a professor of history at Cornell University (1915-17) and in 1919 became an American citizen.

From the 1910s until his death, Van Loon wrote many books. Most widely known among these is The Story of Mankind, a history of the world especially for children, which won the first Newbery Medal in 1922. The book was later updated by Van Loon and has continued to be updated, first by his son and later by other historians.

However, he also wrote many other very popular books aimed at young adults. As a writer he was known for emphasizing crucial historical events and giving a complete picture of individual characters, as well as the role of the arts in history. He also had an informal style which, particularly in The Story of Mankind, included personal anecdotes.

Asked how to say his name, he told The Literary Digest "I still stick to the Dutch pronunciation of the double o—Loon like loan in 'Loan and Trust Co.' My sons will probably accept the American pronunciation. It really does not matter very much." (Charles Earle Funk, What's the Name, Please?, Funk & Wagnalls, 1936.)

[edit] Bibliography

A partial list of books by Hendrik Willem van Loon, with first publication dates.

  • The Fall of the Dutch Republic (1913)
  • The Rise of the Dutch Kingdom (1915)
  • The Romance of Discovery (1917)
  • The Golden Book of the Dutch Navigators (1917)
  • Ancient man; the beginning of civilizations (1920)
  • The Story of Mankind (1921)
  • The Story of the Bible (1923)
  • The Story of Wilbur the Hat (1925)
  • Tolerance (1925)
  • The Liberation of Mankind (1926)
  • The Story of America (1927)
  • Adriaen Block (1928)
  • Multiplex man (1928)
  • Life and Times of Peter Stuyvesant (1928)
  • Man the Miracle Maker (1928)
  • R.v.R. (1930; a fictional biography of Rembrandt)
  • "If the Dutch Had Kept Nieuw Amsterdam", in If, Or History Rewritten, edited by J. C. Squire (1931)
  • Van Loon's Geography (1932)
  • An Elephant Up a Tree (1933)
  • An Indiscreet Itinerary (1933)
  • The story of inventions: Man, the miracle maker (1934)
  • Ships and How They Sailed the Seven Seas (1935)
  • Around the World With the Alphabet (1935)
  • Air-Storming (1935)
  • Love me not (1935)
  • World divided is a world lost (1935)
  • Home of mankind; the story of the world we live in (1936)
  • The Songs We Sing (1936)
  • The Arts (1937)
  • Christmas Carols (with Grace Castagnetta) (1937)
  • Observations on the mystery of print and the work of Johann Gutenberg (1937)
  • Our Battle: Being One Man's Answer to "My Battle" by Adolf Hitler (1938)
  • How to Look at Pictures (1938)
  • The Last of the Troubadours (1939)
  • Songs America Sings (1939)
  • The Story of the Pacific (1940)
  • The Life and Times of Bach (1940)
  • Van Loon's Lives (1942)
  • Thomas Jefferson (1943)
  • The Life and Times of Simon Bolivar (1943)
  • Report to Saint Peter (1947; posthumously published autobiography)

[edit] Books about Van Loon

  • Cornelis van Minnen (2005). Van Loon: Popular Historian, Journalist, and FDR Confidant. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 1-4039-7049-1. 
  • Gerard Willem Van Loon (1972). The story of Hendrik Willem van Loon. Lippincott. ISBN 0-397-00844-9. 

[edit] Trivia

The Italian songwriter Francesco Guccini has composed a song, dedicated to the memory of his wife, named after Anneliese Van Loon. The song is titled "Van Loon" and appears in the album Signora Bovary.

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
Persondata
NAME Van Loon, Hendrik Willem
ALTERNATIVE NAMES VanLoon, Hendrik Willem;Loon, Hendrik Willem van
SHORT DESCRIPTION Dutch-American historian and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH January 14, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH Rotterdam
DATE OF DEATH March 11, 1944
PLACE OF DEATH Old Greenwich (Connecticut)