Michael Kazin (born June 6, 1948) is an American historian, and professor at Georgetown University. He is co-editor of ''

Dissent Dissent is an opinion, philosophy or sentiment of non-agreement or opposition to a prevailing idea or policy enforced under the authority of a government, political party or other entity or individual. A dissenting person may be referred to as ...

'' magazine.

Early life

Kazin was born in New York City in 1948 and was raised in

Englewood, New Jersey Englewood is a city in Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, which at the 2020 United States census had a population of 29,308. Englewood was incorporated as a city by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 17, 1899, from port ...

. He is the son of literary critic

Alfred Kazin Alfred Kazin (June 5, 1915 – June 5, 1998) was an American writer and literary critic. He wrote often about the immigrant experience in early twentieth century America. Early life Like many other New York Intellectuals, Alfred Kazin was t ...

, and step-son of structural engineer

Mario Salvadori Mario G. Salvadori (March 19, 1907 – June 25, 1997)Goldberger, Paul (June 28, 1997) ''The New York Times''. was an American structural engineer and professor of both civil engineering and architecture at Columbia University. Early life Sal ...

. He graduated from

Dwight-Englewood School The Dwight-Englewood School (D-E) is an independent coeducational college-preparatory day school, located in Englewood, Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. The school teaches students from pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade in three ...

in 1966 and received the school's Distinguished Alumni Award in 2006. He received a B.A. in Social Studies from

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher l ...

, an M.A. in History from

Portland State University Portland State University (PSU) is a public research university in Portland, Oregon. It was founded in 1946 as a post-secondary educational institution for World War II veterans. It evolved into a four-year college over the following two decades ...

, and a Ph.D. in History from

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...

. As a Harvard student he was a leader in

Students for a Democratic Society Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a national student activist organization in the United States during the 1960s, and was one of the principal representations of the New Left. Disdaining permanent leaders, hierarchical relationships a ...

Career

Kazin's main research interests are American social movements and politics of the 19th and 20th centuries. He has authored books on labor history (
Barons of Labor
'); populism (
The Populist Persuasion
') and a biography of

William Jennings Bryan William Jennings Bryan (March 19, 1860 – July 26, 1925) was an American lawyer, orator and politician. Beginning in 1896, he emerged as a dominant force in the History of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, running ...

, (
A Godly Hero
'). He is also co-author (with Maurice Isserman) of
America Divided
', now in its sixth edition;
American Dreamers
' and
War Against War: The American Fight for Peace, 1914-1918
'. ''Barons of Labor'' was awarded the Herbert Gutman Prize in 1988, and ''War Against War'' won the award for the best book in peace history published in 2017 and 2018 from the Peace History Society. Kazin has written numerous reviews and articles for such periodicals as ''The New York Times'', ''The Washington Post'', ''

The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...

'', ''The New Republic'', and ''The Nation''. He has won fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Institute for Advanced Study, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, among others. Kazin has been a Fulbright scholar in the Netherlands and Japan. He has twice been a member of the Pulitzer Prize jury for biography and autobiography. In 2020, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Kazin is a member of the

Democratic Socialists of America The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is a left-wing multi-tendency socialist and labor-oriented political organization. Its roots are in the Socialist Party of America (SPA), whose leaders included Eugene V. Debs, Norman Thomas and Mich ...

. In an article for the Fall 2019 issue of ''Dissent'' magazine, Kazin argues that strategic collaboration between liberals and leftists is essential for the realization of a progressive political program. He wrote that "no Democrat will win the presidency in 2020 unless she or he can mobilize a broad coalition in which socialists would still be a distinct minority. In the United States, a strategic alliance between liberals and leftists is the only way durable changes have ever been won ... Abolitionists who joined the Republican Party drove Radical Reconstruction; union activists with socialist convictions helped make the Democrats a semblance of a labor party in big industrial states; the black freedom movement worked with white liberals to pass the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts. Such coalitions were short-lived and frustrated radicals who wanted more far-reaching results. But when liberals and leftists remained at odds, as during the final decades of the past century, they made it easier for the right to triumph."

Books

* ''Barons of Labor: The San Francisco Building Trades and Union Power in the Progressive Era'', University of Illinois Press, 1987 * ''The Populist Persuasion: An American History'', Basic Books, 1995 * ''America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s'' (co-author, Maurice Isserman), Oxford University Press, 1999 * ''A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan'', Alfred A. Knopf, 2006 * ''American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation'', Alfred A. Knopf, August 2011 * ''War Against War: The American Fight for Peace'', 1914-1918 , Simon and Schuster, 2017 * ''What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party'', Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022

Personal life

Kazin married physician Beth C. Horowitz in 1980. They have two children, Danny, born in 1988, and Maia, born in 1991.

Notes

References

*Michael Kazin
''The Populist Persuasion: An American History''
Cornell University Press, 1998, p. 222–224.

External links

*
with Michael Kazin
� by Stephen McKiernan, Binghamton University Libraries Center for the Study of the 1960s, February 12, 2011 {{DEFAULTSORT:Kazin, Michael 1948 births Labor historians American male non-fiction writers Dwight-Englewood School alumni Georgetown University faculty Harvard University alumni Historiographers Jewish American historians Living people Members of the Democratic Socialists of America Portland State University alumni Stanford University alumni Writers from New York City Jewish socialists Members of the Weather Underground American left-wing activists Political historians Left-wing populism in the United States Populism scholars American biographers Historians from New York (state)