Ernest R. May

Ernest Richard May

(1928-11-19)November 19, 1928

June 1, 2009(2009-06-01) (aged 80)

The Kennedy Tapes

Personal life[edit]

May was born on November 19, 1928, in Fort Worth, Texas, and grew up as an only child.[4] He graduated from R. L. Paschal High School in 1944. He attended the University of California, Los Angeles, and was awarded a bachelor's degree in 1948 and received his Ph.D. in 1951.[5] After his graduation, he served during the Korean War era from 1951 to 1954 as an officer in the United States Navy Reserves.[4][10]


A resident of Cambridge, Massachusetts, May died at age 80 on June 1, 2009, at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, due to complications resulting from cancer surgery.[5] He was survived by Susan Wood, his second wife. Nancy Caughey, his first wife, had died in 2000, and May was survived by their son and two daughters, as well as three grandchildren.[4]

"The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Far Eastern War, 1941–1945," Pacific Historical Review 24:2 (1955): 153–174.

https://doi.org/10.2307/3634575

"The Development of Political-Military Consultation in the United States." Political Science Quarterly 78#2 1955, pp. 161–180, .

https://doi.org/10.2307/2145220

"The Far Eastern Policy of the United States in the Period of the Russo-Japanese War: A Russian View," American Historical Review 62:2 (1957): 345–351.

https://doi.org/10.2307/1845187

The World War and American Isolation: 1914–1917 (1959)

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Imperial Democracy: The Emergence of America as a Great Power (1951)

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American Imperialism: A Speculative Essay (1968)

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American-East Asian Relations: A Survey (Harvard UP, 1972) , coeditor

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, (1986)

Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision-Makers

The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis (1997)

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Strange Victory: Hitler's Conquest of France (2000)

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Philip Zelikow, Niall Ferguson, Francis J. Gavin, Anne Karalekas, Daniel Sargent. "Forum 31 on the Importance of the Scholarship of Ernest May" H-DIPLO Dec. 17, 2021

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