Frank Tachau (1929-2010) devoted his scholarly life to Middle East studies, raising its status from an obscure, regional specialty to a respected, academic field for students, world leaders, and an interested public.
In his nearly 40 years as a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Dr. Tachau wrote numerous articles and books including: “Political Parties of the Middle East and North Africa,” “Electoral Politics in the Middle East,” and his most well-known, “The Developing Nations: What Path to Modernization?”
Dr. Tachau, 80, died of multiple myeloma on Friday, July 23, in Skyesville, Md. He had moved to Maryland after retiring from teaching in 2006.
He was born in Braunschweig, Germany. His parents, Leah and Paul Tachau, were intellectuals whose family included rabbis who helped launch the Reform Movement in Germany.
The family left Germany in 1934, crossing the Atlantic by boat when Tachau was 6 years old. They settled on Chicago‘s South Side. Dr. Tachau attended Hyde Park High School and then went on to the University of Chicago, receiving a bachelor’s degree, a master’s in political science, and a doctorate in international relations.
Dr. Tachau began his academic career at Purdue Universityand also taught at Rutgers University in New Jersey before returning to Chicago in 1968 to take a post as professor of political science at the University of Illinois.
Richard Simpson, head of the political science department, said Dr. Tachau was part of the generation of faculty who helped build UIC into a world-class university. Richard Johnson, UIC professor emeritus of political science and a longtime friend, agreed.
“He worked hard to make UIC a better place, one that would be closer to the ideal of a great university that many of us strived to accomplish,” Johnson said. “Members of the department owe Frank a deep debt of gratitude for all that he did.”
His role in helping establish the field of Middle East studies was pivotal, said Joel Migdal, professor of international studies at the University of Washington‘s Jackson School of International Studies
“Frank was truly an exceptional man,” Migdal said. “He moved the field from a pure regional specialty, usually populated with researchers with an ax to grind, to one that used comparative methods to place the Middle East in a broader, more objective perspective.”
Dr. Tachau’s research focused on Turkey, through which he traveled and lectured extensively. He wrote numbers research papers as well as a book on the country.
His prominence as a scholar of Turkish politics became so well-known that an international conference covering social, political and economic change was organized in his honor at Istanbul’s Isik University in 2006.
Dr. Tachau managed to remain a devoted family man while building his reputation as a Middle East expert. Still, he sometimes felt pangs of guilt. In the preface of “Turkey: The Politics of Authority, Democracy, and Development,” he wrote that he hoped that his family would “find in these pages some explanation, if not compensation, for the tensions and frustrations that inevitably accompany a project such as this.”
His daughter Carla Tachau Lawrence said her father’s personality was magnetic.
“He was the kind of person you wanted at a dinner party because the conversation would be interesting and wide-ranging, and he was inclusive, not dominating,” she said.
After retiring from full-time teaching in May 1996, Dr. Tachau continued teaching part time until 2006.
He also is survived by his wife, Paula; three sons, Daniel, Joel, and Jeremy; another daughter, Ellen Koronet; 15 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
Funeral services were held in Maryland. A memorial in the Chicago area will be scheduled.
