George Rippey Stewart | |
|---|---|
 Stewart's books about U.S. highways were based on his cross-country drives of 1924, 1949 and 1950. | |
| Born | (1895-05-31)May 31, 1895 Sewickley, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | August 22, 1980(1980-08-22) (aged 85) San Francisco, California, U.S.[1] |
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| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Princeton University (BA) University of California, Berkeley (MA) Columbia University (PhD) |
George Rippey Stewart Jr. (May 31, 1895 – August 22, 1980) was an American historian,toponymist, novelist, and a professor of English at theUniversity of California, Berkeley. His 1959 bookPickett's Charge, a detailed history of the final attack at theBattle of Gettysburg, was termed "essential for an understanding of theBattle of Gettysburg".[2] His 1949post-apocalyptic novelEarth Abides won the firstInternational Fantasy Award in 1951.
Stewart was born inSewickley, Pennsylvania, to engineer George Rippey Stewart Sr., who designed gasworks and electric railways and later became a citrus "rancher" in Southern California, and Ella Wilson Stewart. The younger Stewart earned a bachelor's degree fromPrinceton University in 1917, an MA from theUniversity of California, Berkeley, and his Ph.D. in English literature fromColumbia University in 1922.[3] He accepted a job with the English department at Berkeley in 1923.[4] After his father died, he stopped using the "Jr." with his name.
Stewart was a founding member of theAmerican Name Society in 1956–57. He once served as an expert witness in amurder trial as a specialist in family names. His best-known academic work isNames on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States (1945; reprinted, New York Review Books, 2008). He wrote three other books on names:A Concise Dictionary of American Place-Names (1970),Names on the Globe (1975), andAmerican Given Names (1979). His scholarly works concerning the poetic meter of ballads (published using the name George R. Stewart, Jr.), beginning with his 1922 Ph.D. dissertation at Columbia, remain important.[citation needed]
As an author, Stewart's output was diverse.Ordeal by Hunger,Pickett's Charge, and other works are examinations of American history.Earth Abides was a science fiction novel about the destruction of civilization, in which everything formerly taken for granted about civilization and the situation of human beings in their environment can no longer be assumed.
East Of Giants is historical fiction.Man, an Autobiography is one of the very few works of speculative anthropology, in which he attempts to deduce how major developments of prehistorical civilization must have happened.Good Lives provides a series of biographical sketches with the purpose of determining what it is that makes for a good life.Not So Rich As You Think (1968) was a prescient early essay in environmentalism.Storm (1941) uses an immense storm as its protagonist, an extraordinary departure in itself.
Years of the City is concerned with the factors that result in the development and decay of civilizations.
ForEarth Abides (1949) he won the inauguralInternational Fantasy Award for fiction in 1951.[1] It was dramatized by the radio programEscape and served as an inspiration forStephen King'sThe Stand, as King has stated.[5]The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction terms it "one of the finest of all Post-Holocaust/Ruined Earth novels".[1]
His 1941 novelStorm inspiredAlan Jay Lerner andFrederick Loewe to write the song "They Call the Wind Maria" for their 1951 musicalPaint Your Wagon.[6]
Storm was dramatized asA Storm Called Maria on the November 2, 1959, episode of ABC's anthology television seriesWalt Disney Presents. Co-produced by Ken Nelson Productions, it blended newsreel footage of several different storms to represent the mega-storm of the novel and traced the storm from its origins in Japan to the coast of California. The cast included non-actors, among them the dam superintendent George Kritsky, the telephone lineman Walt Bowen, and the highway superintendent Leo Quinn.
Another novel,Fire (1948), and a historical work,Ordeal By Hunger (1936), also evoked environmental catastrophes.
