Jerry H Bentley

Jerry H. Bentley (1949-2012) was a Professor of History at the University of Hawaii, Manoa. Educated at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and the University of Minnesota, his early research focused on Renaissance humanist scholarship of the Bible, but after coming to Hawaii in 1976 he emerged as one of the international leaders in world history scholarship and teaching. He published a wide range of articles on comparative and transnational methods in history and several books, including...See more

Jerry H. Bentley (1949-2012) was a Professor of History at the University of Hawaii, Manoa. Educated at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and the University of Minnesota, his early research focused on Renaissance humanist scholarship of the Bible, but after coming to Hawaii in 1976 he emerged as one of the international leaders in world history scholarship and teaching. He published a wide range of articles on comparative and transnational methods in history and several books, including the seminal Old World Encounters: Cross-Cultural Contact and Exchange in Pre-Modern Times (1993) and one of the most popular textbooks for teaching world history, Traditions and Encounters. He was the founding editor of the Journal of World History, and served as its editor-in-chief for twenty-two years, and was also a founding member of the World History Association in 1982. He developed standards and curriculum locally, nationally, and internationally, established a flourishing Ph.D. program in world history at the University of Hawaii, directed numerous seminars for scholars and teachers across the globe, and fostered a world history program at Capital Normal University in Beijing. See less