Arthur M. Schlesinger

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Arthur M. Schlesinger (1951)
US President John F. Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson watch the Mercury-Redstone 3 space mission , Arthur M. Schlesinger in the background, left (1961)

Arthur Meier Schlesinger Jr. (born October 15, 1917 in Columbus , Ohio , USA as Arthur Bancroft Schlesinger , † February 28, 2007 in New York ) was an American historian , advisor to two US presidents and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner . He mainly examined the policies of US presidents such as Andrew Jackson , Franklin D. Roosevelt , John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon .

Life

Schlesinger was born in Columbus , Ohio . He was the son of Elizabeth Harriet née Bancroft (1886–1977) and Arthur M. Schlesinger senior (1888–1965), an influential historian and professor of history at Ohio State University and Harvard University .

He attended Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and then studied at Harvard College . In 1940, at the age of 23, he received a three-year post as a research fellow at Harvard University. His work there was interrupted when the United States entered the Second World War. After he was declared unfit for war during the draft investigation, Schlesinger joined the Office of War Information . From 1943 to 1945 worked as an intelligence analyst for the Office of Strategic Services , a precursor agency of the CIA . His work at the OSS gave him the time it needed to complete his first Pulitzer Prize-winning work, The Age of Jackson (1945).

From 1945 to 1961 he was a professor at Harvard University. He resigned to serve as special advisor to Presidents Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 to 1964 . In 1955 Schlesinger was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , 1961 to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and 1987 to the American Philosophical Society .

His 1965 description of the Kennedy Presidency A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House became his most famous work and received the Pulitzer Prize as his second book. No less famous was his biography of the JFK brother Robert , who was murdered in 1968 , Robert Kennedy and His Times (1978).

In his 1991 book “The Disuniting of America” (America's drifting apart), after the end of the decades-long bloc confrontation, Schlesinger worried about the threatening and ideology of the USA and its founding idea (“E pluribus unum - one comes from many”) Rise in ethnic conflicts within states around the world counteracting multiculturalism . Are ethnically, religiously and culturally heterogeneous societies able to hold their countries together and develop further under the umbrella of a common identity? Do they threaten to collapse in the end, as the examples of Catalonia or the countries of the Middle East show almost 30 years later ?

“What happens when people of different ethnic origins, speaking different languages ​​and practicing different religions, live together in the same geographic region and under the same political authority? If they are not united by a common goal, ethnic hostility will drive them apart. (...) The question America asks itself as a pluralistic society is how to defend valued cultures and traditions without breaking the bonds of social togetherness: common ideals, common political institutions, a common language and culture common fate. "

In 1994 Schlesinger was accepted as a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences .

Schlesinger was married twice: his first wife was Marian Cannon, with whom he had four children; his second wife was Alexandra Emmet, with her he had a son and a stepson.

Arthur M. Schlesinger died at the age of 89 as a result of a heart attack while visiting a restaurant .

The Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. Award is named in his honor.

Selected Works

  • The Age of Jackson. Little, Brown and Co., Boston, MA et al. 1945 (new edition: Konecky & Konecky, Old Saybrook, CT 2005, ISBN 1-56852-436-6 )
  • The Crisis of the Old Order, 1919-1933. The Age of Roosevelt, Vol. I. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, MA et al. 1957 (received the Bancroft Prize )
  • The Coming of the New Deal, 1933-1935. The Age of Roosevelt, Vol. II. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, MA et al. 1959
  • The Politics of Upheaval, 1935-1936. The Age of Roosevelt, Vol. III. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, MA et al. 1960
  • A thousand days. John F. Kennedy in the White House. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, MA et al. 1965
    • German: The thousand days of Kennedys. Scherz, Bern et al. 1965
  • The Bitter Heritage. Vietnam and American Democracy, 1941-1966. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, MA et al. 1967
    • German: The bitter legacy. Vietnam, the touchstone of democracy. Scherz, Bern et al. 1967
  • The Crisis of Confidence. Ideas, Power, and Violence in America. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, MA et al. 1969
    • German: The shattered trust. Will America Become a Violent Nation? Scherz, Bern et al. 1969
  • The Imperial Presidency. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, MA et al. 1973, ISBN 0-395-17713-8 (new edition: Mariner Books, Boston, MA et al. 2004, ISBN 0-618-42001-0 )
  • Robert Kennedy and His Times. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, MA et al. 1978, ISBN 0-395-24897-3 (New edition: Ballantine Books, New York, NY 1996, ISBN 0-345-32547-8 )
  • The Cycles of American History. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, MA et al. 1987, ISBN 0-395-37887-7
  • The Disuniting of America. Reflections on a Multicultural Society. WW Norton & Co., New York, NY et al. 1991, ISBN 0-393-30987-8
  • A Life in the Twentieth Century. Innocent Beginnings, 1917-1950. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, MA et al. 2000, ISBN 978-0-395-70752-4
  • Journals, 1952-2000. Eds. Andrew Schlesinger and Stephen Schlesinger. Penguin Press, New York, NY 2007, ISBN 978-1-59420-142-4

In September 2011, Caroline Kennedy released tapes of interviews given by her mother Jacqueline in March 1964, four months after her husband Arthur M. Schlesinger was murdered. They also appeared in book form:

  • Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy. Foreword by Caroline Kennedy. Interviews with Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., 1964. Hyperion, New York, NY 2011, ISBN 978-1-40132-425-4
    • German: Jacqueline Kennedy: Conversations about a life with John F. Kennedy. With a foreword by Caroline Kennedy. Interviews with Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., 1964. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-455-50238-1

Web links

Commons : Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.  - Collection of images, videos, and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ WOSU Presents Ohioana Authors, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. . In: Ohioana Authors . WOSU . 2006. Retrieved March 19, 2015.
  2. ^ Robert Schlesinger: Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s Not-So-Secret Career as a Spy: My father's OSS records reveal no James Bond, but a World War II career like so many others , US News & World Report . August 20, 2008. 
  3. ^ Members: Arthur Schlesinger. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed April 24, 2019 (with information on awards).
  4. ^ Member History: Arthur Schlesinger. American Philosophical Society, accessed December 23, 2018 .
  5. ↑ "The Disuniting of America" , S. 10 and S. 138 (original English).
  6. ^ Foreign members of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Arthur Meier Schlesinger. Russian Academy of Sciences, accessed November 8, 2015 (in Russian).
  7. ^ Douglas Martin: Arthur Schlesinger, Historian of Power, Dies at 89. In: New York Times . March 1, 2007.
  8. ↑ Extensive discussion with further materials: Interviews with the JFK widow: So spoke Jackie .
personal data
SURNAME Schlesinger, Arthur M.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schlesinger, Arthur Meier Jr .; Schlesinger, Arthur Bancroft (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American historian
DATE OF BIRTH October 15, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH Columbus , USA
DATE OF DEATH February 28, 2007
Place of death new York