Bouwsma, William J.

Bouwsma, William J. (James)

(1923– ) historian; born in Ann Arbor, Mich. He attended Harvard University (Ph.D. 1950) and taught at the University of Illinois (1950–56), the University of California: Berkeley (1956–69), where he was also department chairman and academic vice-chancellor, and at Harvard (1969–71), returning to Berkeley (1971–91) as department chairman and professor emeritus (1991). His influential books on Renaissance history include Culture of Renaissance Humanism (1973) and A Usable Past (1990).