Donald Kagan, leading neo-conservative historian from Brooklyn, dead at 89
Donald Kagan, a prominent classical scholar, contentious defender of traditional education and architect of neo-conservative foreign policy, has died at age 89.
Kagan, a professor emeritus at Yale University and father of historians Robert and Frederick Kagan, died Aug. 6 at a retirement home in Washington, D.C. His death was announced by Yale and confirmed Wednesday by his sons.
Born in Kurenai, Lithuania, Kagan was just 2 when he and his newly widowed mother emigrated to the U.S. and settled in Brownsville, Brooklyn, where as a boy, his wary view of humanity was shaped by the anti-Semitic gangs from nearby areas who menaced him. He was an undergraduate at Brooklyn College, received a master’s in classical studies at Brown University and a PhD in history from Ohio State University.