Mark R. Peattie *72

Mark Peattie, noted scholar of Japanese history, died Jan. 22, 2014. He was 83.

Peattie received a bachelor’s degree in history from Pomona College in 1951 and an accelerated master’s degree from Stanford in 1952 before serving in the Army. In 1955, he began his career with the U.S. Information Agency as a cultural diplomat. He served for two years in Cambodia and spent nine years in Japan. In Tokyo, he became director of the American Cultural Center in Kyoto.

In 1967, Peattie turned to academia and earned a Ph.D. in history from Princeton in 1972. He then taught at Penn State, UCLA, and the University of Massachusetts. He was a research fellow at the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard for many years.

Peattie was a senior research staff member at the Hoover Institution and then a visiting scholar at the Shorenstein Center, both at Stanford. He wrote seven books on Japanese Imperial history and three were published by Princeton University Press. Since 2009, he had been a Princeton Alumni Schools Committee interviewer in northern California.

Peattie was predeceased by Alice, his wife of 52 years. He is survived by three children and five grandchildren.

Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.