Notable Historians, Posters & Prints “I...-J...-K...-”
educational posters for social studies classrooms, home schools, and theme decor for office.

Washington Irving
Flavius Josephus

Ibn Khaldun
Gabriel Kolko

Washington Irving
b. 4-3-1783; NYC, New York
d. 11-29-1859; NY

Poster Text: “Whenever a man's friends begin to compliment him about looking young, he may be sure that they think he is growing old.” - Bachelors

During the 19th century, author Washington Irving became known for his humorous stories and for essays making fun of New York society. Irving worked as a lawyer in New York City for a time, but his love for writing led him to leave his law practice in 1809. That same year his first book, Knickerbocker's History of Hew York, was published. Irving's most famous works include the short stories “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” both of which are in the collection titled, The Sketch Book (1819-1820). “Rip Van Winkle” tells about a man who falls asleep for twenty years and wakes up to discover that the American Revolution has taken place. “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” finds awkward schoolmaster Ichabod Crane frightened by a headless horseman. the success of The Sketch Book helped the short story gain popularity with American writers, readers, and critics. Washington Irving loved to travel, and throughout his life he visited many countries. European traditions and authors influenced his work. For example, “Rip Van Winkle” an “The legend of Sleepy Hollow” are actually based on German folk tales.

Irving became a U.S. diplomat in Spain in 1826, and his writing from this time show his interest in Spanish topics. When he returned to New York in 1832, he wrote history and biography. He then served as the U.S. minister to Spain for four years beginning in 1842. Irving died in 1859, soon after finishing a five-volume biography of George Washington. He was 76 years old.

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Flavius Josephus
b. 37 AD; Jerusalem
d. c. 100 AD

Flavius Josephus, a Romano-Jewish historian and hagiographer, recorded 1st-century Jewish history of the First Jewish–Roman War and the resulting Destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. His work provides valuable insight into 1st century Judaism and the background of Early Christianity.

Ibn Khaldun
b. 5-27-1332; Tunis, Tunisia
d. 3-19-1406; Cairo

Muslim scholar Ibn Khaldun is noted as an early contributor to cultural history, historiography and the philosophy of history. He also was a teacher, astronomer, jurist, theologian, mathematician, and philosopher.

Gabriel Kolko
b. 8-17-1932; Paterson, NJ

Gabriel Kolko is a revisionist historian of the early New Left*, advancing the corporate liberalism idea whereby the old Progressive historiography of the “interests” versus the “people” was reinterpreted as a collaboration of interests aiming towards stabilizing competition. He suggested that “corporations reacted to the free market by turning to government to protect their inherent inefficiency from the discipline of market conditions. In other words, ‘the corporate elite — the House of Morgan, for example — turned to government intervention when it realized in the waning 19th century that competition was too unruly to guarantee market share’”, a behavior known as “corporatism”.

* “New Left is an epithet applied mainly in the United Kingdom and United States to activists, educators, agitators and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range of reforms, in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had focused mostly on labor unionization and questions of social class.”

Anna Komnene
b. 12-1-1083; Constantinople
d. c. 1153

Anna Komnene, a Byzantine princess and scholar, wrote the Alexiad, an account of her father's reign, making her one of the first Western female historians.

Thomas Kuhn
b. 7-18-1922; Cincinnati, OH
d. 6-17-1996

Physicist Thomas Kuhn wrote on the history of science, bringing the idea of “paradigm shift” into popular consciousness.