Stanley Wolpert

Biography

Early life

Stanley Albert Wolpert was born on December 23, 1927, in Brooklyn, New York, to Russian Jewish parents. While serving as an engineer aboard a U.S. Merchant Marine ship, he arrived in Bombay, India, for the first time on February 12, 1948. Upon arriving, he was both fascinated by the outpouring of grief over the death of Mahatma Gandhi—whom he then knew very little about—two weeks earlier. On returning home, he abandoned his career in marine engineering for the study of Indian history. He received a B.A. from City College of New York in 1953, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1955 and 1959, respectively. His dissertation (published as Tilak and Gokhale) was on the revolutionary and reform wings of the Indian National Congress. The dissertation was one of the two books selected for the Watumull Prize of the American Historical Association in 1962, a prize recognizing "the best book on the history of India originally published in the United States."

Career

Wolpert began his academic career in 1959, when he took a job as an instructor in the Department of History at UCLA. He was promoted in 1960 to assistant professor; in 1963 to associate professor; and in 1967 to full professor. In 1968 he was appointed department chair. He was later an emeritus professor.

Wolpert's book Nine Hours to Rama was adapted to a feature film in 1963.

In 1975 Wolpert was awarded UCLA's Distinguished Teaching Award.

Wolpert was a guest on Connie Martinson Talks Books in 2011, promoting his 2010 book, India and Pakistan: Continued Conflict or Cooperation.

Personal life and death

He married Dorothy Wolpert (née Guberman) on June 12, 1953. They met in an American government class at City College of New York. She went on to become a senior partner in a Century City law firm, and made several visits to India with her husband. They had two sons and three grandchildren.

Wolpert died on February 19, 2019.