Ted Gurr Has Passed Away

Dr. Ted Robert Gurr, noted researcher on political violence and author of Why Men Rebel (1970), passed away on 25 November 2017 at the age of 81. His obituary is here:

http://kraftsussman.com/tribute/details/1516/Ted-Gurr/obituary.html

Wikipedia article on Ted Gurr here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Robert_Gurr

 

I never knew him, but his work was a major influence on my work. In the late 1960s, Gurr and Professors Ivo and Rosalind Feierabend led two independent quantitative analysis efforts on the causes of revolutions. Even though they each created their own databases and independently did their own regression analysis of the subject, they came up with similar results. I did have several discussions with Dr. Ivo Feierabend while I was doing some independent work on the causes of revolution.

We have posted about this work before. It is here:

Quote from America’s Modern Wars

Why Are We Still Wondering Why Men (And Women) Rebel?

Why Men Rebel?

Rest in peace Dr. Gurr, and we expect that your work will live on.

Share this:
Christopher A. Lawrence
Christopher A. Lawrence

Christopher A. Lawrence is a professional historian and military analyst. He is the Executive Director and President of The Dupuy Institute, an organization dedicated to scholarly research and objective analysis of historical data related to armed conflict and the resolution of armed conflict. The Dupuy Institute provides independent, historically-based analyses of lessons learned from modern military experience.

Mr. Lawrence was the program manager for the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base, the Kursk Data Base, the Modern Insurgency Spread Sheets and for a number of other smaller combat data bases. He has participated in casualty estimation studies (including estimates for Bosnia and Iraq) and studies of air campaign modeling, enemy prisoner of war capture rates, medium weight armor, urban warfare, situational awareness, counterinsurgency and other subjects for the U.S. Army, the Defense Department, the Joint Staff and the U.S. Air Force. He has also directed a number of studies related to the military impact of banning antipersonnel mines for the Joint Staff, Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation.

His published works include papers and monographs for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation, in addition to over 40 articles written for limited-distribution newsletters and over 60 analytical reports prepared for the Defense Department. He is the author of Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka (Aberdeen Books, Sheridan, CO., 2015), America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam (Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia & Oxford, 2015), War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat (Potomac Books, Lincoln, NE., 2017) and The Battle of Prokhorovka (Stackpole Books, Guilford, CT., 2019)

Mr. Lawrence lives in northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., with his wife and son.

Articles: 1455

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *