Arthur Meier Schlesinger, Jr. (b. October 15, 1917) is an American scholar, historian, author, public official, philosopher, liberal thinker and social critic whose work has focused on the philosophies and policies of U.S. presidents, including Andrew Jackson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Richard Nixon. He served as the in-house historian of the John F. Kennedy administration.

He was born in Columbus, Ohio, the son of Arthur M. Schlesinger (1888-1965), who was also a respected historian.

Schlesinger is a prolific Contributer to liberal theory and is a passionate and articulate voice for Kennedyism and the Great Society. He is admired for his wit, scholarship, and devotion to the liberal agenda.

Career

Education

1993 Phillips Exeter Academy

1938 Harvard University - Society of Fellows, 1939-1942

War time service

1942–1943 Office of War Information

1943–1945 Office of Strategic Services

Educator

1946-1961 professor of history at Harvard

1966 Albert Schweitzer Professor of Humanities at City University of New York Graduate Center - emeritus, 1994

Democratic Activist

co-founded Americans for Democratic Action

worked in Adlai Stevenson's two Presidential campaigns

1960 worked for John F. Kennedy's campaign

1961-1964 Presidential special assistant for Latin American affairs and speech writer

Writings

He won a Pulitzer Prize in history for his 1945 book The Age of Jackson.

His 1949 book The Vital Center is considered a landmark work of political analysis which made a case for the New Deal policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt, while harshly critical of both unregulated capitalism and of those liberals who advocated cooperation or sympathy with totalitarian ideologies such as communism.

His 1986 book The Cycles of American History was an early work on the relationship of generations to cycles of politics in the United States, and influenced the later work in that area by William Strauss and Neil Howe.

He was a contributor to The National Experience, an American history textbook.

He has written recently about the erosion of common civic engagement brought about by multiculturalism, in the book The Disuniting of America (1991).

Schlesinger's Ten Most Influential People of the Second Millennium list, from the 2000 World Almanac & Book of Facts

1. William Shakespeare, 1564-1616
2. Isaac Newton, 1642-1727
3. Charles Darwin, 1809-82
4. Nicolaus Copernicus, 1473-1543
5. Galileo Galilei, 1564-1642
6. Albert Einstein, 1879-1955
7. Christopher Columbus, 1451-1506
8. Abraham Lincoln, 1809-65
9. Johann Gutenberg, c. 1397-1468
10. William Harvey, 1578-1657

Autobiography: A Life in the 20th Century, Innocent Beginnings, 1917–1950 (2000)

Awards

• 1946 Pulitzer Prize for History - The Age of Jackson
• 1965 National Book Award for A Thousand Days
• 1966 Pulitzer Prize for Biography - A Thousand Days
• 1979 National Book Award for Robert Kennedy and His Times
• 1998 National Humanities Medal
• 2003 Four Freedoms Award

Quote

If 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.

See also

New Deal historiography American historiography hagiography Alan Brinkley Ellis Hawley William Leuchtenberg John Kenneth Galbraith