Lach, Donald F. (Donald Frederick), 1917-

Donald F. Lach was a professor of history at the University of Chicago and arguably the foremost authority on Asia's influence on the history and development of Modern Europe (circa 1500-1800). He was born in Pittsburgh in 1917 to German immigrants. He received his bachelor's degree from West Virginia University in 1937 and his doctorate from the University of Chicago in 1941. His thesis was titled "Contributions of China to German Civilization, 1648-1740," and portions of it were published in 1944 under the same title. In 1939 Lach married Alma Elizabeth Satorius, who was to become a successful chef and cookbook author. They had one daughter, Sandra Lach Arlinghaus, born in 1943. After completing the PhD, Lach taught at Elmira College and then returned to the University of Chicago in 1948.

Lach received a Fulbright Scholarship to study in France in1949-1950 and a Social Science Research grant to do more work in Europe from 1952 to 1953. During the early 1950s, two books were published of which Lach was co-author: Modern Far Eastern International Relations, with University of Chicago professor Harley Farnsworth MacNair (published in 1950), and Europe and the Modern World with Louis Gottschalk, also at the University of Chicago. Europe and the Modern World was published in two volumes: The Rise of Modern Europe (1951) and The Transformation of Modern Europe (1954). In 1957, Lach published a translation (with commentary) of the preface to Leibniz' Novissima Sinica.

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