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Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
Arthur Meier Schlesinger, Jr., born Arthur Bancroft Schlesinger (October 15 1917 – February 28 2007), was a Pulitzer Prize recipient and American historian and social critic whose work explored the liberalism of American political leaders including Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Robert F. Kennedy. He served as special assistant and "court historian"http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/04/weekinreview/04tanenhaus.html?_r=1&oref=slogin to the President in John F. Kennedy's administration. He wrote a detailed account of the Kennedy administration, titled A Thousand Days. During the deliberations of the United States decision to invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, with President Kennedy and his closest advisers, he was one of two persons who opposed the strike[1] (the other being William Fulbright); however, he sat silent, except writing a private memorandum to President, not wanting to undermine the President's desire for a unanimous decision. Following the overt failure of the invasion, Schlesinger later lamented "In the months after the Bay of Pigs, I bitterly reproached myself for having kept so silent during those crucial discussions in the cabinet room . . . I can only explain my failure to do more than raise a few timid questions by reporting that one's impulse to blow the whistle on this nonsense was simply undone by the circumstances of the discussion."[2] Schlesinger was a prolific contributor to liberal theory and was a passionate and articulate voice for Kennedy-style liberalism. He was admired for his wit, scholarship, and devotion to delineating the history and nature of liberalism. Since 1990 he had been a critic of multiculturalism. He popularized the term "imperial presidency" during the Nixon administration by writing the book The Imperial Presidency.
BiographySchlesinger was born in Columbus, Ohio, the son of Arthur M. Schlesinger (1888 – 1965), who was an influential social historian at Ohio State University and Harvard University.[3] His son, Stephen Schlesinger, is a social scientist, former director of the World Policy Institute at The New School University in New York City and contributor to the Huffington Post; son Robert Schlesinger and stepson Peter Allan also blogged on Huffington Post, as did Arthur Schlesinger himself. Schlesinger's name at birth was Arthur Bancroft Schlesinger; his mother was Elizabeth Bancroft and the family has long assumed (without hard evidence) that there is a blood connection to America's first great historian George Bancroft. Since his mid-teens, he had instead used the signature Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (Schlesinger 2000, pp. 6-7 and 57) He had five children, four from his first marriage, to author Marian Cannon, and a son and stepson from his second, to Alexandra Emmet. During World War II, Schlesinger served in a spy ring operated by the Office of Strategic Services, a precursor to the CIA; In Garry Wills's 1970 book, "Nixon Agonistes", he mentions Schlesinger's background in the OSS.[4] Dr. Schlesinger's full involvement was very openly and publicly discussed in the media in 2008, along with other well known personalities such as chef Julia Child.[5][6] CareerEducation
World War II service
Educator
Democratic activist
DeathMr. Schlesinger died on February 28, 2007, at the age of 89. According to The New York Times he experienced cardiac arrest while dining out with family members in Manhattan. The newspapers have dubbed him a "historian of power."[7] WritingsHis 1949 book The Vital Center made a case for the New Deal policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt, while harshly critical of both unregulated capitalism and of those liberals such as Henry A. Wallace who advocated coexistence with communism. He won a Pulitzer Prize in history for his 1945 book The Age of Jackson, and another in 1966 for A Thousand Days. His 1986 book The Cycles of American History was an early work on cycles in politics in the United States; it was influenced by his father's work on cycles. He became a leading opponent of multiculturalism in the 1980s and articulated his position on it The Disuniting of America (1991). Published posthumously in 2007, Journals 1952-2000 is the 894-page distillation of 6,000 pages of Schlesinger diaries on a wide variety of subjects, edited by Andrew and Stephen Schlesinger. [8] This is a list of his published works:
Awards
QuoteIf we are to survive, we must have ideas, vision, and courage. These things are rarely produced by committees. Everything that matters in our intellectual and moral life begins with an individual confronting his own mind and conscience in a room by himself. NotesReferences
Further research
External links
de:Arthur M. Schlesinger fr:Arthur Meier Schlesinger, Jr. it:Arthur Schlesinger Jr. la:Arthurus Schlesinger nl:Arthur M. Schlesinger jr. ja:????????????? pl:Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. pt:Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. simple:Arthur Schlesinger Jr fi:Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. sv:Arthur M. Schlesinger Source: Wikipedia | The above article is available under the GNU FDL. | Edit this article
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