John W. Baldwin

Who is John W. Baldwin?

John Wesley Baldwin is an American historian. He is Charles Homer Haskins professor of history emeritus at the Johns Hopkins University. Born in Chicago, he received his Hopkins Ph.D. in 1956 and joined the faculty in 1961. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1992. Author of nine books, he has been elected to numerous academies including the American Philosophical Society, the Medieval Academy, the British Academy, the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, and, most famously, the Académie des inscriptions et belles lettres. In 2007 Northwestern University conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters. He has been decorated by the French Government with the Ordre National de la Légion d'Honneur and the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. For an autobiographical sketch see "A Medievalist and Francophile Despite Himself," in Why France? American Historians Reflect on an Enduring Fascination, edited by Laura Lee Downs and Stéphan Gerson, French translation in Pourquoi la France?.