Keith Hopkins

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Morris Keith Hopkins (June 20, 1934–March 8, 2004) was a British historian and sociologist. He was professor of ancient history at the University of Cambridge from 1985 to 2001.

Hopkins warred continuously against the assumption that serious history could be written by induction from inadequate ancient sources, which had often come to be treated as though they were sacred texts. A brilliant and iconoclastic historian of imperial Rome, he began his work when ancient history was institutionally, through its close connection to classics, and intellectually often divorced from contemporary trends in historical writing, let alone from the social sciences.

Keith meanwhile had an unconventional academic career, which had taken him via a Brunel University chair in sociology to the Cambridge professorship. He used his wide reading in other historical societies and his knowledge of social science to write problem-based history through asking fundamental questions about the structure of Roman society.

Educated at Brentwood School, he graduated in classics from King's College, Cambridge in 1958. As a graduate student Keith was much influenced by the great historian Moses Finley. After an assistant lectureship in sociology at the University of Leicester (1961-63), he became a research fellow at King's College, Cambridge (1963-67) while at the same time taking a lectureship at the London School of Economics. After two years as sociology professor at Hong Kong University (1967-69), he returned to the LSE (1970-72) before taking the sociology professorship at Brunel in 1972, where he was also dean of the social sciences faculty from 1981-85. Then, in 1985, came the Cambridge chair in ancient history.

[edit] Publications

• Conquerors And Slaves (1978)
• Death And Renewal (1983)
• A World Full Of Gods (1999)
• Rome The Cosmopolis (2002), a volume of essays written in honour of Keith Hopkins