John Gillis (historian)

He began as a German historian, moved to British history, and then to age relations, marriage, memory, and the cultures of European and American family life.

Gillis subsequently began studying the history and geography of coasts and coastal peoples.

In his 2012 book The Human Shore: Seacoasts in History, he begins with the first humans to approach the shore, tracing coastal migrations around the world, and discussing the ways that coasts and coastal people have figured in globalization over several centuries.

[3] Gillis retired from Rutgers University in 2005 and since that time lived in Berkeley, California while spending summers on Great Gott Island, off Acadia National Park in Maine.

Gillis was an active and highly respected doctoral adviser, steering eleven students to their PhDs at Rutgers.