Paul Samuel Boyer (August 2, 1935[1]–March 17, 2012[2][3]) was a U.S. cultural and intellectual historian (Ph.D., Harvard University, 1966) and Merle Curti Professor of History Emeritus and former director (1993–2001) of the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
The family was active in the Brethren in Christ Church, an offshoot of the Mennonites.
[6] Paul Samuel Boyer died at Agrace Hospicecare on March 17, 2012, after three months battle with cancer.
[7] Boyer, who grew up in a conservative Christian family, was a pacifist and conscientious objector.
[8][9] He specialized in the religious and moral history of the American people from the days of the Salem Witch Trials in the 1690s, through the Protestant efforts to reform society in the 19th and early 20th centuries to the impact of nuclear weapons on the American psyche after World War II.