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Who is Lothrop Stoddard? In the first place, his name is Theodore Lothrop Stoddard. He is the son of John Lawson Stoddard, and both father and son were born in Brookline, Massachusetts, where at 1768 Beacon Street, the son now has his residence. The senior Stoddard travelled widely and was known as the promoter of the Stoddard lectures in the larger American cities for over twenty years. His travel lectures fill fifteen volumes. Mr. Stoddard retired from the platform in 1897 and lives in the Italian Tyrol. The son, born in 1883, was graduated from Harvard in 1905. He is unmarried. The interests that lie back of his volumes are reflected in his membership in the American Historical Association, the American Political Science Association, the American Sociological Society, the Academy of Political Science, the National Institute of Social Sciences, the American Genetic Association and the Galton Society. But let Mr. Stoddard speak for himself:
“I have always been interested in world affairs. I spent a good deal of my early life in Europe and as an undergraduate at Harvard most of my work was along those lines, that is, history, politics, sociology, and so forth. The four men who stimulated me most were Professors A. C. Coolidge, T. N. Carver, Toy, and R. M. Johnston. At that time, however, I was intending to make the law my profession and I took the law course and was admitted to the Massachusetts bar at the beginning of 1908. The immediate occasion for my undertaking my present profession was a trip to Europe which I took at that time. This trip was an extensive journey through western and central Europe, occupying most of the year 1908; it was in the nature of a ‘grand tour’ before settling down to the practice of law. But when I was in Europe during that year (the year of the second great political crisis preceding the European War) I became convinced of what I had already suspected, that a cataclysm was inevitable in Europe within a relatively short time. I further realised that in any such cataclysmic struggle the United States would either be directly involved or would at least be drawn out of its isolation into the stream of world affairs. The idea shaped itself strongly in my mind to fit myself to become an expert on world affairs. I believe that such experts were at that time very few in number in America. However, I realised that if America should be situated as I felt she would be after a European disaster, such experts would be greatly needed. To me such a career implied extensive preparation and special training. In my opinion the expert on world affairs must have a high degree of technical knowledge such as cannot result from the knowledge gained by travel, ordinary reading or experience, however accurate that knowledge may be. Especially is a thorough historical background a prime necessity.
“Accordingly I proceeded to acquire the technical knowledge and training which I judged necessary by entering the Harvard Graduate School where I spent four and a half years, from the autumn of 1909 to January, 1914, gaining incidentally my A.M. and Ph.D. degrees. I was ready then actively to practise my new profession. Nevertheless for the first two or three years I did much more research work on contemporary world affairs and future tendencies than actual writing. I planned out a long schedule of writing; and The Rising Tide of Color is the first large item in that schedule.”
Books by Lothrop Stoddard
1914 The French Revolution in San Domingo
1917 Present-Day Europe—Its National States
of Mind
1918 The Stakes of the War
1919 Harper’s Pictorial Library of the World
War (Volume 6, The World at War)
1920 The Rising Tide of Color Against White
World Supremacy
1921 The New World of Islam
1923 The Revolt Against Civilization
Sources on Lothrop Stoddard
Who’s Who in America, Volume 12, 1922-23.
Private Information.