Lewis H. Gann
Lewis Henry Gann was an American historian, political scientist and archivist. He is particularly known for his research in African history and specialized in the history of Central Africa in colonial era, writing a number of works in collaboration with Peter Duignan. He also worked on aspects of the history of the United States and plural societies.Biography
Gann was born in Mainz, Germany into a German Jewish family and was originally named Ludwig Hermann Ganz. In 1938, his family successfully escaped from Nazi anti-Semitic persecution and settled in the United Kingdom. He was educated at Carlisle Grammar School in northern England. In 1943, Gann enlisted in the Royal Fusiliers and served in World War II. He was demobilised in 1947.
After the war, Gann joined the University of Oxford and gained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Modern History from Balliol College, Oxford in 1950. After graduating, he travelled to Central Africa where he took a research post at the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute in Northern Rhodesia. He continued his studies at Oxford and gained a masters and doctorate in 1967. He also worked at the University of Manchester. In 1954, he emigrated to Southern Rhodesia after being offered a post at the National Archives of Rhodesia. Gann emigrated to the United States in 1963 where he took up a position at the Hoover Institution Library and Archives in Stanford University as curator of the Institute's African and European collections. He was a fellow of the Royal Historical Society in London and was an Officer of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
During the course of his academic career, Gann had written or edited 38 books and academic monographs, mainly on the subject of African history and political science. He produced a number of important works in collaboration with Peter Duignan. The two notably edited the five-volume Colonialism in Africa, 1870–1960 series with Cambridge University Press.
