Peter A. Munch

[1] In 1948, he immigrated to the United States as a post-doctoral research fellow studying Norwegian-American rural sociology in the Midwest.

He ended his professional career at Southern Illinois University, with a focus on graduate studies and sociological research based on trips to the remote South Atlantic island Tristan da Cunha.

This resulted in numerous publications written in Norwegian, English, and German regarding original Hebrew Old Testament texts and their meaning in the modern world.

This work was the subject of his doctoral dissertation, finished in 1943 but hidden when he was imprisoned by the German occupation forces at Grini detention camp.

In 1946, when the University in Oslo was reopened after World War II, he successfully defended the dissertation titled Sociology of Tristan da Cunha based on the Gemeinschaft concepts introduced by Ferdinand Tönnies, and obtained the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Munch quickly applied for research grants to visit the evacuees and to study their adaptation to modern European life.

He found that most islanders were unhappy in their new homes and was relieved when the British government agreed to finance the resettlement of Tristan da Cunha in 1963, when the volcano was again dormant.