History Professor Emeritus George M. Fredrickson died of heart failure at his home on the Stanford campus on Feb. 25. He was 73.

Fredrickson helped establish the field of comparative history with his 1981 book “White Supremacy: A Comparative Study in American and South African History.” The book was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

After teaching at Harvard and Northwestern, Fredrickson became a professor at Stanford in 1984. He was a co-founder of the University’s Research Institute of Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, and he co-directed the center from 1996 until his retirement in 2002.

Fredrickson is the author of eight books on race and racism. His latest, “Big Enough to Be Inconsistent: Abraham Lincoln Confronts Slavery and Race,” was published last week.

The History Department is planning a memorial in May.