Hans Baron was a German American historian of political thought and literature in the Italian Renaissance. His main contribution to the historiography of the period was to introduce in 1928 the term civic humanism (denoting most if not all of the content of classical republicanism

Classical republicanism

Classical republicanism is a form of republicanism developed in the Renaissance inspired by the governmental forms and writings of classical antiquity. The earliest examples of the school were classical writers such as Aristotle, Polybius, and Cicero...

).
Born in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 of a Jewish family, Baron was a student of the liberal Protestant theologian Ernst Troeltsch

Ernst Troeltsch

Ernst Troeltsch was a German Protestant theologian and writer on philosophy of religion and philosophy of history, and an influential figure in German thought before 1914...

. After Hitler's rise to power in 1933, he left Germany, first for Italy and England, then in 1938 for the United States.