Robert Burr

Biography

The UCLA History Department is sad to announce the passing of Professor Emeritus Robert N. Burr (1916-2014), one of this country’s leading Latin American historians, who passed away on December 8, 2014 at the age of 98.  Burr wrote extensively about the history of Latin American politics and was best known for his work on Chile.  He traveled widely in Latin America and often served as a government consultant. In 1966 his path-breaking study, By Reason or Force: Chile and the Balancing of Power in South America, 1830-1905, was awarded the Bolton Prize for the best book in Latin American History by the American Historical Association. Burr went on to write a number of additional books, including Our Troubled Hemisphere: Perspectives on United States-Latin American Relations which was published by the Brookings Institution in 1967; earlier, he published The Stillborn Panama Congress: Power Politics and Chilean-Colombian Relations during the War of the Pacific (University of California Press, 1962).  From 1948 until his retirement in 1987, he served as Professor of Latin American History at the UCLA, where he helped to establish a major program in Latin American Studies. From 1973 to 1978, Burr served with great distinction as Chair of the Department of History at UCLA, and from 1985-1987, he was the Director of UCLA’s International Studies and Overseas Programs.  He also served for a time on the associated staff of the Brookings Institution.   Burr’s well balanced and thoroughly researched academic studies were matched by a leadership style that combined a fine sense of humor with the manners of a well bred gentleman.  His charm, even-handedness, and good sense made him many friends and even in his late years highly popular and socially active.

Robert N. Burr was born in Rochester, New York, on October 15, 1916.  His father, John Edwin Burr, and his mother, Ethel Bills, were both from Rochester.  He graduated from the University of Rochester in 1939 and received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1948.  In 1940 he married Virginia Ward — a marriage that ended in divorce in 1949– a daughter, Tracy Elizabeth, was born in 1942, and a son, Robert Franklin in 1944. During WWII Burr applied for a commission in the Navy and was accepted for the post-war occupation of Japan, but failed his eye examination.  Instead he got a job at the General Railway Signal Corp. and helped to build fire control systems for B-29 Bombers. In 1945-46 he was engaged in various business enterprises, before taking a teaching position at Rutgers University in 1946 and moving to UCLA in 1948.  While in Chile in 1951-52, he met Elizabeth Evarts and they were married in 1952.  She passed away in 1998.  In his late years he divided his time between Los Angeles and Long Island. He is survived by his son, Robert F. Burr of New York and his spousal niece, Lucy E. Kenny of Port Jefferson, Long Island.

—- obituary by Professor Fred Notehelfer