Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., RIP
By Big Tent Democrat, Section Off Topic
Posted on Thu Mar 01, 2007 at 12:43:58 PM EST
Tags: (all tags)
Posted on Thu Mar 01, 2007 at 12:43:58 PM EST
Tags: (all tags)
From the NYTimes:
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., the historian whose more than 20 books shaped discussions for two generations about America’s past and who himself was a provocative, unabashedly liberal partisan, most notably in serving in the Kennedy White House, died last night in Manhattan. He was 89. . . . Twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, Mr. Schlesinger exhaustively examined the administrations of two prominent presidents, Andrew Jackson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, against a vast background of regional and economic rivalries. He strongly argued that strong individuals like Jackson and Roosevelt could bend history.
The notes he took for President John F. Kennedy to use in writing his own history, became, after the president’s assassination, grist for Mr. Schlesinger’s own “A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House,” winner of both the Pulitzer and a National Book Award in 1966. . . . In his last book, “War and the American Presidency,” published in 2004, Mr. Schlesinger challenged the foundations of the foreign policy of President Bush, calling the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath “a ghastly mess.” He said the president’s curbs on civil liberties would have the same result as similar actions throughout American history. “We hate ourselves in the morning,” he wrote.
The discipline of American History loses one of its great practitioners. Rest in peace.
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