Synopses & Reviews
Historian Henry Steele Commager (1902-1998) was one of the leading American intellectuals of the mid-twentieth century. Author or editor of more than forty books, he taught for decades at New York University, Columbia University, and Amherst College and was a pioneer in the field of American studies. But Commager's work was by no means confined to the halls of the university: a popular essayist, lecturer, and political commentator, he earned a reputation as an activist for liberal causes and waged public campaigns against McCarthyism in the 1950s and the Vietnam War in the 1960s. As few have been able to do in the past half-century, Commager united the two worlds of scholarship and public intellectual activity.
Through Commager's life and legacy, Neil Jumonville explores a number of questions central to the intellectual history of postwar America. After considering whether Commager and his associates were really the conservative and conformist group that critics have assumed them to be, Jumonville offers a reevaluation of the liberalism of the period. Finally, he uses Commager's example to ask whether intellectual life is truly compatible with scholarly life.
Review
Informed and entertaining.
Journal of American History
Review
Neil Jumonville writes history like poetry .
Chicago Tribune
Review
Jumonville•s elegant style engages the reader and compels one to read on. This is an important book.
Journal of Illinois History
Review
[A] thoughtful and intelligent biography.
Alan Brinkley, The New Republic
Review
A revealing, engaged assessment of the life and work of a man who taught thousands and was read by millions.
Kirkus Reviews
Synopsis
This intellectual biography assesses the life and legacy of Henry Steele Commager (1902-1998), one of the few historians who successfully bridged the two worlds of scholarship and public intellectual activity. Commager•s story reaffirms the importance of midcentury liberalism and challenges scholars to become publicly engaged.
Synopsis
Informed and entertaining.
Journal of American History Jumonville•s elegant style engages the reader and compels one to read on. This is an important book.
Journal of Illinois History [A] thoughtful and intelligent biography.
Alan Brinkley, The New Republic Neil Jumonville writes history like poetry .
Chicago Tribune A revealing, engaged assessment of the life and work of a man who taught thousands and was read by millions.
Kirkus Reviews
About the Author
Neil Jumonville, author of Critical Crossings: The New York Intellectuals in Postwar America, is professor of history at Florida State University in Tallahassee.
Table of Contents
ContentsPreface
Acknowledgments
Part I. Intellectuals and Historians
1. The Formation of a Public Intellectual, 1902-1932
2. Philosophy Teaching by Experience, 1928-1936
3. Columbia and New York in the Forties, 1938-1950
Part II. Freedom and the American Century
4. Protecting Liberalism in World War II, 1939-1947
5. Anticommunism and McCarthyism, 1945-1960
6. University, Family, and Race, 1945-1968
7. The Call to Political Morality, 1964-1974
Part III. The Meaning of the American Past
8. The Character and Myth of Historians at Midcentury, 1937-1997
9. Liberals and the Historical Past, 1948-1997
10. Legacies, 1971-1997
Notes
Index
Illustrations
Adam Dan, Henry Steele Commager's maternal grandfather
Henry Steele Commager at age fourteen
Henry Steele Commager and the New York University history department, 1927
Merle Curti, 1944
Allan Nevins, late 1920s
Henry Steele Commager, 1940s
Samuel Eliot Morison, 1940
Henry Steele Commager campaigning against McCarthyism
Arthur Schlesinger Jr., May 1965
William Leuchtenburg, November 1948
Harold Hyman and his wife, Ferne, 1952
Evan Commager with children Nell, Lisa, and Steele
Henry Steele Commager and Allan Nevins, 1963
Henry Steele Commager, 1954
Richard Hofstadter, 1960s
Henry Steele Commager, 1977