EMH EarlyModernHistory

  A Humorous and Compassionate Bridge Builder Professor David Sacks [history 1986–2015] David Harris Sacks, the late Richard F. Scholz Professor of History and Humanities, is photographed in the Cambridge University Library Tea Room by Brian Cowan ’92, who generously gave his permission for Reed Magazine to use this photo. June 16, 2026 David Harris Sacks   once described Richard Hakluyt as “my friend” who’d been educated at Oxford and later in life became divinely inspired to learn about the New World and maps.   Catherine Hinchliff ’10 , then a student in Sacks’s English Renaissance class, sat up in her chair to listen more closely.  “Odd, I thought, but I guess within the realm of possibility that David would have a friend who was really interested in early modern geography,” Catherine says. “It was only when David discussed Hakluyt’s death in 1616 that I realized…David was speaking affectionately about his research subject.” Sacks’s quirky and passionate approach...