Stanley Wolpert
Stanley Wolpert
Professor Emeritus
Biography
The following remembrance is from Professor Emeritus Ron Mellor:
“ Our cherished colleague Stanley Wolpert died suddenly and unexpectantly at the age of 91 on February 19, 2019, while on a family visit to his son Adam in northern California. He leaves his beloved wife of 66 years, Dorothy, and his sons Daniel and Adam, as well as three grandchildren, Sam, Max, and Sabine.
A native of Brooklyn, Stanley received his B.A. at City College of New York, and later his M.A. and Ph.D. in Indian history from the University of Pennsylvania. He arrived at UCLA in 1959 and was promoted to Full Professor in 1967. He was Department Chair and won the Distinguished Teaching Award in 1975. He took emeritus status in 2002.
As a distinguished and prolific historian of South Asia, he published more than a dozen scholarly books including biographies of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru of India as well as biographies of Mohammad Ali Jinna and Zulfikar Bhutto of Pakistan. His New History of India (Oxford) has appeared in eight editions, and his more general cultural introduction, India (California), is in its fourth edition. Among his four novels, the best known is Nine Hours to Rama (1962), which was made into a motion picture.
During his sixty years at UCLA, Stanley has been an epitome of grace, kindness and intelligence. He was loving toward his family and loyal to his many friends who loved Stanley and Dorothy for their charm, intelligence, hospitality and sense of humor. Several generations of students admired not only Stanley’s knowledge but his unfailing generosity; they saw him as a “gentleman.”
— Please plan on joining in on a celebration of Stanley Wolpert’s life at a memorial for him to be held on May 26th from 1 pm to 4 pm in the UCLA Faculty Center Dining Room. —
