Peter Michael Blau, a renowned author and professor, was born in Vienna in 1918, to Theodor I. Blau and Bertha Selka Blau. He left Austria in 1939 just prior to the outbreak of World War II and came to the United States, where he became a naturalized citizen in 1943. Blau received a bachelor of arts at Elmhurst College in 1942, and then served as an intelligence agent in the U.S. Army until the end of World War II. Afterward he returned to his studies, receiving a Ph.D. at Columbia University in 1952; he later was awarded a masters of arts from Cambridge University in 1966. Blau's first marriage to Zena Smith in 1948 produced one daughter, Pamela Lisa; he also had a daughter, Reva Theresa, with his second wife, Judith Rae Fritz, whom he married in 1968.

Blau's career in academia began as an instructor, first at Wayne State University (1949-51) and then...