Jay Winik (born February 8, 1957) is a ''New York Times'' best-selling author and American historian who is best known for his book ''April 1865: The Month That Saved America''.
Education and early career
Winik is an honors graduate of
Yale College
Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, ...
. He also holds an M.Sc. in economics from the
London School of Economics
, mottoeng = To understand the causes of things
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £240.8 million (2021)
, budget = £391.1 millio ...
with distinction and a Ph.D. from
Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
. He played on the Yale tennis team and was an editor of the ''
Yale Daily News
The ''Yale Daily News'' is an independent student newspaper published by Yale University students in New Haven, Connecticut since January 28, 1878. It is the oldest college daily newspaper in the United States. The ''Yale Daily News'' has consis ...
''.
He had a brief career in the U.S. government's foreign policy, involving civil wars around the globe, from the former
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
to
El Salvador
El Salvador (; , meaning " The Saviour"), officially the Republic of El Salvador ( es, República de El Salvador), is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south b ...
,
Nicaragua
Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the cou ...
, and
Cambodia
Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand t ...
, including helping to create the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
plan to end the
Cambodian Civil War
The Cambodian Civil War ( km, សង្គ្រាមស៊ីវិលកម្ពុជា, Romanization of Khmer#UNGEGN, UNGEGN: ) was a civil war in Cambodia fought between the forces of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (known as the Khme ...
. In 1991, he took up writing history full-time.
Career
The ''Baltimore Sun'' has called Winik “one of the nation's leading public historians” and he is currently th
inaugural Historian-in-Residenceat the
Council on Foreign Relations
The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an American think tank
A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, mi ...
. He is the author of the highly acclaimed, number one bestseller ''April 1865'' (2001), which also became a History Channel documentary and a stage production, both of which feature him. In 2007 Winik published the ''New York Times bestselling ''The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World'', which both ''USA Today'' and ''The Financial Times'' picked as one of their “Best Books of the Year.” Winik's latest book is ''1944: FDR and the Year That Changed History'', also a ''NYT'' best-seller. It has stimulated a broad national conversation about morality and foreign policy.
Winik has been read by political leaders including
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...
,
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
,
Harry Reid
Harry Mason Reid Jr. (; December 2, 1939 – December 28, 2021) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Nevada from 1987 to 2017. He led the Senate Democratic Caucus from 2005 to 2017 and was the Sena ...
, and
Mitch McConnell
Addison Mitchell McConnell III (born February 20, 1942) is an American politician and retired attorney serving as the senior United States senator from Kentucky and the Senate minority leader since 2021. Currently in his seventh term, McConne ...
as well as Chief Justice John Roberts and numerous celebrities. Winik appears on the first page of George W. Bush's presidential memoir ''
Decision Points
''Decision Points'' is a memoir by former U.S. President George W. Bush. It was released on November 9, 2010, and the release was accompanied by national television appearances and a national tour. The book surpassed sales of two million copies ...
'', discussing the craft of writing history with the president. Just after the
September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...
, Bush was seen carrying ''April 1865'' in the White House.
In 2017 in the ''New York Times'', renowned actor Tom Hanks read an excerpt from ''April 1865'' to
Maureen Dowd
Maureen Brigid Dowd (; born January 14, 1952) is an American columnist for ''The New York Times'' and an author.
During the 1970s and early 1980s, Dowd worked for ''The Washington Star'' and ''Time'', writing news, sports and feature articles. ...
about slavery and race relations. He told the ''NYT'' that Winik's ''April 1865'' is on his nightstand.
Peggy Noonan
Margaret Ellen Noonan (born 1950), known as Peggy Noonan, is a weekly columnist for ''The Wall Street Journal'', and contributor to NBC News and ABC News. She was a primary speechwriter and Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan from 1984 t ...
also told the ''NYT'' that ''1944'' is on her nightstand.
Articles and commentary
Winik's articles and history book reviews have been published in the ''New York Times'', ''Atlantic'' magazine, ''Time'' magazine, ''Newsweek'', ''National Review'', ''The Washington Post'', and ''The Wall Street Journal'', to which he has been a frequent contributor. He has appeared on national broadcasts such as ''The Today Show'', ''Fresh Air'' and ''Morning Edition'' with Scott Simon, ''CNN'', ''Good Morning America'', and ''The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer''. He has provided historical commentary for documentaries on the
History Channel
History (formerly The History Channel from January 1, 1995 to February 15, 2008, stylized as HISTORY) is an American pay television network and flagship channel owned by A&E Networks, a joint venture between Hearst Communications and the Disney ...
and PBS as well as
C-SPAN
Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American cable and satellite television network that was created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a nonprofit public service. It televises many proceedings of the United States ...
, and was the Presidential Historian for FOX News for
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...
and
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
's inaugurations and Senator
Ted Kennedy
Edward Moore Kennedy (February 22, 1932 – August 25, 2009) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Massachusetts for almost 47 years, from 1962 until his death in 2009. A member of the Democratic ...
's funeral.
In 2002 he was a regular on the History Channel weekly show, ''The History Center''. He was a principal history commentator for the History Channel special ''Pearl Harbor: 24 Hours After''. In 2013, he was a historical advisor to National Geographic and the consulting historian for their six-part series, ''The 1980s: The Decade That Made Us'', which aired in over 100 countries.
In a ''New York Times''
op-ed
An op-ed, short for "opposite the editorial page", is a written prose piece, typically published by a North-American newspaper or magazine, which expresses the opinion of an author usually not affiliated with the publication's editorial board. O ...
, Winik correctly predicted a long guerrilla struggle in Iraq, while ''Time'' magazine noted that Winik's ''April 1865'' was a powerful reminder about how a war's end is every bit as important as how or why it had begun.
Public service
Winik serves as a trustee or advisory board member on a number of nonprofit boards, including for ''
American Heritage Magazine
''American Heritage'' is a magazine dedicated to covering the history of the United States for a mainstream readership. Until 2007, the magazine was published by Forbes. '', the
Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission
Abraham, ; ar, , , name=, group= (originally Abram) is the common Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father of the special relationship between the Jews ...
,
Ford's Theatre Society
Ford's Theatre is a theater located in Washington, D.C., which opened in August 1863. The theater is infamous for being the site of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. On the night of April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth entered the theater box ...
, and it's Lincoln Legacy Project,
The Civil War Preservation Trust, the
Lincoln Forum, the Washington Tennis and Education Foundation, and the
Potomac School, as well as the Governing Council of the
National Endowment for the Humanities
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...
. He also currently serves on the board of trustees for The American Folk Life Center of the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
, as well as the Veterans History Project of the Library of Congress.
Memberships
He is a member of the
Council on Foreign Relations
The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an American think tank
A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, mi ...
and an elected Fellow of the Society of American Historians. Appointed by the President, he is on the board of trustees of the
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust hi ...
.
United States Holocaust Memorial: Press Release April 30th, 2020: President Trump appoints new council member
/ref>
Works
*
*''April 1865: The Month That Saved America'', G.K. Hall, 2001, ;
*''1944: FDR and the Year That Changed History'', Simon & Schuster, 2015,
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Winik, Jay
Living people
1957 births
20th-century American historians
21st-century American historians
21st-century American male writers
Writers from New Haven, Connecticut
Yale College alumni
Alumni of the London School of Economics
20th-century American male writers
American male non-fiction writers
Historians from Connecticut