Peter R. Pouncey is an author, classicist

Classics

Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...

, and university administrator. The son of a British father and a French-British mother, he was born in Tsingtao (now Qingdao), China.
At the end of World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, after several dislocations and separations, his family reassembled in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, and Pouncey was educated there in boarding schools and at Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

. For a time, he studied for the Jesuit priesthood but ultimately experienced a loss of faith.

Shortly after obtaining a Ph.D. from Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 in 1969, he was appointed assistant professor of Greek and Latin in the Classics Department. In 1972 he took up the post of Dean at Columbia College

Columbia College of Columbia University

Columbia College is the oldest undergraduate college at Columbia University, situated on the university's main campus in Morningside Heights in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1754 by the Church of England as King's College, receiving a Royal Charter from King George II...

. As Dean, he was a forceful proponent of admitting women to the college, going so far as to hold a faculty vote on the matter without the knowledge of the university's president, William McGill

William J. McGill

William James McGill was an American psychologist, author and academic administrator.-Biography:McGill was born in New York City to a musician and labor organizer. He attended parochial Catholic schools and in 1939 began his college education at Fordham University, where he earned bachelor's and...

. Concerns about the future of Barnard College

Barnard College

Barnard College is a private women's liberal arts college and a member of the Seven Sisters. Founded in 1889, Barnard has been affiliated with Columbia University since 1900. The campus stretches along Broadway between 116th and 120th Streets in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough...

 led to McGill's rejection of the proposal. In 1976, Pouncey resigned as Dean. As a member of the Classics Department, he produced a number of notable works of scholarship, including the book The necessities of war: a study of Thucydides' pessimism which won the university's Lionel Trilling Award.

In 1984, he became President of Amherst College

Amherst College

Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...

. Upon his retirement in 1994, he returned to Columbia. His novel Rules for Old Men Waiting won the McKitterick Prize

McKitterick Prize

The McKitterick Prize is a United Kingdom literary prize. It is administered by the Society of Authors. It was endowed by Tom McKitterick, who had been an editor of The Political Quarterly but had also written a novel which was never published. The prize is awarded annually for a first novel by...

 and was nominated for the Commonwealth Writers Prize in 2006. Pouncey currently divides his time between New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 and northern Connecticut

Connecticut

Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...

.

Works

• The necessities of war: a study of Thucydides' pessimism, Columbia University Press, (1980) ISBN 9780231049948
• Rules for Old Men Waiting (2005) ISBN 0812973968