All Scholars

        Born in Vienna, Burns developed, as he said in his memoir, a zeal for the ancient classics from the time he began to study Greek and Latin in the Gymnasium. As he also stated, during that era of smug optimism, people assumed that a classical education would prepare students for leading civilian or military positions, since Greek and Roman literature provided the answers to ethical, political, and military problems. He put off becoming a classicist, however, because of the tumultuous events that led to World War II, realizing later that graduates of that educational system usually appeared in the forefront of the most irrational movements (From Austria to Hawaii, 1 and 15–16).

      Burns and his bride Stella, who would share forty-nine years of marriage, barely escaped the Nazi invasion of Austria by skiing to Switzerland (From Austria to Hawaii, 85–7). After reaching France, they obtained visas to emigrate to America, where Burns, who once worked as a croupier in the casinos of Austria, worked as a waiter and bartender in the restaurants of New York as well as a ski instructor on the slopes of Pennsylvania. While serving in the U.S. Army in World War II, he met the legendary Marlene Dietrich, who was entertaining the troops in Aachen: he had been introduced to Dietrich and had been befriended by her in Vienna years earlier (From Austria to Hawaii, 71–3 and 170–4). 

      After serving in the military, Burns relocated to Seattle, where, while working for the Boeing Company, he earned his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. at the University of Washington. He studied Greek philosophy with Professor John McDiarmid and Roman philosophy with Professor William Grummel, who directed his dissertation on Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, which grew out of Burns’s interest in the seizure of power by dictators. He also became fascinated with how Athens in one century gave birth to an intellectual revolution that converted mythical into scientific thought and gave man the strength to govern himself and explore the workings of the universe (From Austria to Hawaii, 214–5).

       With his Ph.D. in hand, Burns accepted a tenure-track position at the University of Hawaii, fulfilling his lifelong dream of being a classicist (From Austria to Hawaii, 223–4). He was authorized to expand the Latin Division into a full-fledged Classics Division in the Department of European Languages and Literatures, offering courses in Greek, Latin, and Classics-in-Translation in a challenging multicultural student environment. As Chair of the Classics Division for thirteen years, he recruited new professors for the program, including the two who would co-edit his autobiography and who would also co-author this entry about his life for the DBCS (From Austria to Hawaii, 225–6 and 269).

      Burns died of cancer eight years after Stella’s death, having spent his final days in Seattle with his son Glen, who, like his father, worked for Boeing. Although Burns began his career as a classicist late in life, he became a highly regarded teacher at the University of Hawaii and published in respectable journals a series of scholarly articles, primarily on ancient science and ancient philosophy (all listed above). His book on Western literacy, his major contribution as a professor emeritus, provides an understanding of how the technology and practice of writing empowered Western civilization’s intellectual and cultural evolution (see the review of G. O’Sullivan in CW).