Name Lawrence Baack | Role Author | |
Books Undying Curiosity: Carsten Niebuhr and The Royal Danish Expedition to Arabia (1761-1767) | ||
Lawrence J. Baack (born May 13, 1943) is an American historian of modern Europe, with a particular interest in Germany and Scandinavia, and a sub-specialty in Antarctica. He is the author of Agrarian Reform in Eighteenth Century Denmark, Christian Bernstorff and Prussia: Diplomacy and Reform Conservatism 1818-1832, and Undying Curiosity: Carsten Niebuhr and the Royal Danish Expedition to Arabia 1761-1767, among other works.
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Life and career
Baack was born in Berkeley, California, which remains his home today. He graduated in 1964 from the University of California, Berkeley, with a major in history. At Berkeley, his advisor was Raymond J. Sontag, the well-known scholar in European Diplomatic History.
Baack was an officer in the United States Navy from 1964 to 1969, and had three deployments to Vietnam during the Vietnam War.
He subsequently entered graduate school in History at Stanford University. There he was a student of Peter Paret, the distinguished Europeanist, who greatly influenced his approach to the study of history. He received his PhD in 1973. His academic career began at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, where he was promoted and tenured, and became Vice Chair of the History Department. He also served as Head of the Area Studies Program in International Affairs and Business, Chairman of the University Libraries Committee and a member of the University Research Council. While at Nebraska, he was also a Guest Professor at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, and was selected by the National Science Foundation as the U.S. Antarctic Fellow for 1979-80. During that year he participated in American research activities in Antarctica including the exploration of the Ellsworth Mountains. At Nebraska his major published research studies examined social and agricultural change in 18th Century Denmark, and Prussia's German and European policies and notions of German nationhood during the first third of the 19th Century. The latter work has been called “a remarkable scholarly achievement” (Felix Gilbert), and the reviewer in the English Historical Review concluded “Baack's outstanding study of Pre-March Prussia cannot be ignored by anyone interested in modern German history.” (William Carr).
After his work in Antarctica, he returned to the San Francisco Bay Area and, beginning a business career, accepted a position as the Director of Education at the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), at that time the nation's largest gas and electric utility. He subsequently held a number of executive positions at PG&E, including Head of the Governmental Relations Department and Vice President for Corporate Planning. While at PG&E, he continued to be involved academically normally teaching a seminar each semester at either San Francisco State University or the University of California, Berkeley.
During that period he was also active as a civic leader in the San Francisco area. He served as President of the Bay Area Economic Forum, a leadership partnership of governmental, business, university, environmental and labor leaders in the region. He was also Chairman of the Bay Area Defense Conversion Task Force charged with the challenge of dealing with the closure of twelve military bases in the region in the wake of the end of the Cold War with the attendant loss of over 250,000 jobs. He was the Co-Chair of the Bay Area Water Transit Task Force, and was asked to be the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement Program by the President of the University of California System, a program serving historically under-represented minorities in the California schools and universities. He was also appointed to the California Commission on the Management and Leadership of the Public Schools, the Director's Blue Ribbon Task Force for the California State Park System, the California Economic Policy Working Group of the California State Legislature, and the Regional Planning Committee for the Association of Bay Area Governments. He has served as a director or trustee for a number of organizations whose work focused on services for urban youth, education, economic opportunity for minority communities, and reducing poverty and homelessness, as well as for organizations such as the World Affairs Council of Northern California.
In retirement, Baack returned to academic research and was a Visiting Scholar in the History Department at the University of California, Berkeley from 2003-2011. His research interests and publications have focussed on European scientific exploration in the 18th Century.
He has been married, since 1964, to Dr. Jane E. Baack, a retired Professor of Organizational Behavior at San Francisco State University. He has two children, James, an information technology engineer at PG&E, and Sally, Professor of Strategic Management, and Chair of the Management Department at San Francisco State University, and four grandchildren.