Julian Emanuel Zelizer (born 1969) is a professor of

political history Political history is the narrative and survey of political events, ideas, movements, organs of government, voters, parties and leaders. It is closely related to other fields of history, including diplomatic history, constitutional history, social ...

and an author in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

. Zelizer has authored or co-authored several books about American political history; his focuses of study are the second half of the 20th century and the 21st century.

Education

Raised in

Metuchen, New Jersey Metuchen ( ) is a suburban borough in Middlesex County, New Jersey, United States. The borough is a commuter town of New York City, located in the heart of the Raritan Valley region within the New York Metropolitan area. The borough, along wit ...

, Zelizer was educated at

Metuchen High School Metuchen High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school that serves students in ninth through twelfth grades from Metuchen in Middlesex County, New Jersey, United States, operating as the lone secondary school of the Metuchen Scho ...

, a comprehensive public high school, followed by

Brandeis University , mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = NECHE , president = Ronald D. Liebowitz , pro ...

. He obtained a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

in History from

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

Life and career

Zelizer has contributed to

CNN.com CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...

and ''The Atlantic''. He is a regular commentator on news programs and has appeared in several documentary films. He penned the introduction to a 2016 edition of the

Kerner report The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, known as the Kerner Commission after its chair, Governor Otto Kerner Jr. of Illinois, was an 11-member Presidential Commission established in July 1967 by President Lyndon B. Johnson in to i ...

. He is the Malcolm Stevenson Forbes Professor of History and Public Policy. He has twice won the D. B. Hardeman Prize, for ''Taxing America: Wilbur D. Mills, Congress, and the State, 1945–1975'' and ''The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society''. ''Fault Lines: A History of the United States Since 1974'', co-authored with

Kevin M. Kruse Kevin Michael Kruse (born 1972) is an American historian and a professor of history at Princeton University. His research interests include the political, social, and urban/suburban history of 20th-century America, with a particular focus on the ...

, received wide critical acclaim. Zelizer's most-recent book, ''Burning Down the House: Newt Gingrich, the Fall of a Speaker, and the Rise of the New Republican Party,'' was called "insightful" by ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', which also recognized it as one of the "100 Notable Books of 2020". ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' wrote that it was "engaging" and "timely". Zelizer is the son of the Princeton sociologist

Viviana Zelizer Viviana A. Rotman Zelizer (born January 19, 1946) is an American sociologist and the Lloyd Cotsen '50 Professor of Sociology at Princeton University. She is an economic sociologist who focuses on the attribution of cultural and moral meaning to ...

and

rabbi A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as ''semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of ...

Gerald L. Zelizer.

Personal life

Zelizer is son of a notable

Metuchen Metuchen ( ) is a suburban borough in Middlesex County, New Jersey, United States. The borough is a commuter town of New York City, located in the heart of the Raritan Valley region within the New York Metropolitan area. The borough, along wit ...

rabbi. In 1996, he married Nora Kay Moran at Congregation Adas Israel in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, presided over by his father. In 2012, he married fellow historian

Meg Jacobs Meg Jacobs is a historian of U.S. political history and political economy. She is a Senior Research Scholar at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and in the Department of History at Princeton University. Academics Jacobs g ...

at the Synagogue for the Arts in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, again presided over by his father.

Books

* ''Taxing America: Wilbur D. Mills, Congress, and the State, 1945–1975'' (1999) * ''On Capitol Hill: The Struggle to Reform Congress and its Consequences, 1948–2000'' (2004) * ''Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security – From World War II to the War on Terrorism'' (2009) * ''Jimmy Carter: The American Presidents Series: The 39th President, 1977–1981'' (2010) * ''Conservatives in Power: The Reagan Years, 1981–1989: A Brief History with Documents'' (2011), with

* ''Governing America: The Revival of Political History'' (2012) * ''The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society'' (2015) * ''Media Nation: The Political History of News in Modern America'' (2017), editor, with

Bruce J. Schulman Bruce J. Schulman is an American historian, currently the William E. Huntington Professor at Boston University. According to his faculty profile, Schulman is writing the "volume for the Oxford History of the United States The Oxford History of t ...

* ''The Presidency of Barack Obama: A First Historical Assessment'' (2018), editor * ''Fault Lines: A History of the United States Since 1974'' (2019), with Kevin M. Kruse * ''Burning Down the House: Newt Gingrich, the Fall of a Speaker, and the Rise of the New Republican Party ''(2020) In addition to authoring the books listed above, Zelizer has edited or co-edited a number of books including, most recently, ''Myth America: Historians Take On the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past''.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Zelizer, Julian E. Living people 1969 births 21st-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers Brandeis University alumni Johns Hopkins University alumni Metuchen High School alumni People from Metuchen, New Jersey Princeton University faculty CNN people Historians from New Jersey American male non-fiction writers