Robert A. Dallek (born May 16, 1934)
/ref> is an American historian specializing in the

presidents of the United States The president of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States, indirectly elected to a four-year term via the Electoral College. The officeholder leads the executive branch of the federal government and ...

, including

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...

Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...

, and

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...

. He retired as a history professor at Boston University in 2004 and previously taught at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...

. He won the

Bancroft Prize The Bancroft Prize is awarded each year by the trustees of Columbia University for books about diplomacy or the history of the Americas. It was established in 1948, with a bequest from Frederic Bancroft, in his memory and that of his brother, ...

for his 1979 book ''

and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945'' as well as other awards for scholarship and teaching.

Personal life

Born in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, Dallek is the son of Rubin (a business-machine dealer) and Esther (Fisher) Dallek. Dallek attended the University of Illinois, graduating with a B.A. in history in June 1955. He did graduate work at

, earning an M.A. in February 1957, and a Ph.D. in June 1964. While working on his Ph.D., he was a history instructor at Columbia. He married Geraldine Kronmal (a policy health analyst) on August 22, 1965.

Academic career

In 1964-1994 Dallek advanced from assistant to full professor of history at the Department of History at University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). From 1966 to 1968 he was a graduate adviser. From 1972 to 1974 he served as vice chair of the department. From 1981 to 1985 he was a research associate at the Southern California Psychoanalytic Institute. In 1993 he was a visiting professor at the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

, and from 1994 to 1995 he was the Harold Vyvyan Harmsworth Professor of American History at

, which in 1995 awarded him an honorary M.A. Since 1996 Dallek has been a visiting professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, and a professor of history at Boston University. From 2004 to 2005 he was Montgomery Fellow and a visiting professor in the history and government departments at

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...

. Dallek is a member of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.

''An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963''

In 2003, Dallek published the New York Times Bestseller '' An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963'', the first major biography of

in almost 40 years. Based on archival resources and unprecedented access to his medical records, it revealed his secret struggle with major health problems as well as his love affairs, the backstage role of his father, his appointment of his brother

Robert F. Kennedy Robert Francis Kennedy (November 20, 1925June 6, 1968), also known by his initials RFK and by the nickname Bobby, was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 64th United States Attorney General from January 1961 to September 1964, ...

to the office of United States Attorney General, and speculations about what the President would have done about the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...

if he had lived.

''Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power''

In 2007 Dallek published ''Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power'', which claims that they were visionaries and cynics at the same time, in an attempt to explain the ups and down of their diplomatic careers. "The careers of both Nixon and Kissinger reflect the extent to which great accomplishments and public wrongdoing can spring from inner lives." The book was a finalist for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in History.

Works

Books

* ''Democrat and Diplomat: The Life of William E. Dodd'' (New York:

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, 1968
read online
* ''1898: McKinley's Decision – The United States Declares War on Spain'' (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1969
read online
* ''The Roosevelt Diplomacy and World War II'' (New York:

Holt, Rinehart and Winston Holt McDougal is an American publishing company, a division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, that specializes in textbooks for use in high schools. The Holt name is derived from that of U.S. publisher Henry Holt (1840–1926), co-founder of the e ...

, 1970
read online
* ''The Dynamics of World Power: Western Europe'' (with Robert N. Burr and

Walter LaFeber Walter Fredrick LaFeber (August 30, 1933March 9, 2021) was an American academic who served as the Andrew H. and James S. Tisch Distinguished University Professor in the Department of History at Cornell University. Previous to that he served as t ...

) (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1973
read online
* ''The Dynamics of World Power: A Documentary History of United States Foreign Policy, 1945-1973'' (ed. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., with Robert N. Burr, and

) (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1973)
read online
* ''Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945'' (New York:

, 1979) (

read online
* ''The American Style of Foreign Policy: Cultural Politics and Foreign Affairs'' (New York:

Knopf Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. () is an American publishing house that was founded by Alfred A. Knopf Sr. and Blanche Knopf in 1915. Blanche and Alfred traveled abroad regularly and were known for publishing European, Asian, and Latin American writers in ...

, 1983
read online
* ''Ronald Reagan: The Politics of Symbolism'' (Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retir ...

, 1984,
read online
* ''Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and his Times, 1908–1960'' (New York:

, 1991
read onlineread online
* ''Franklin D. Roosevelt as World Leader: An Inaugural Lecture Delivered before the University of Oxford on 16 May 1995'' (New York:

Clarendon Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, 1995) * ''Hail to the Chief: The Making and Unmaking of American Presidents'' (New York: Hyperion, 1996
read online
* ''Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and his Times, 1961–1973'' (New York:

, 1998
read online
* '' An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963'' (Boston:

Little, Brown and Company Little, Brown and Company is an American publishing company founded in 1837 by Charles Coffin Little and James Brown in Boston. For close to two centuries it has published fiction and nonfiction by American authors. Early lists featured Emily ...

, 2003) * ''Lyndon B. Johnson: Portrait of a President'' (New York:

, 2004
read online
* ''Lessons from the Lives and Times of Presidents'' (Richmond, Virginia:

University of Richmond The University of Richmond (UR or U of R) is a private liberal arts college in Richmond, Virginia. It is a primarily undergraduate, residential institution with approximately 4,350 undergraduate and graduate students in five schools: the School ...

, 2004
read online
* ''Let Every Nation Know: John F. Kennedy in His Own Words'' (with Terry Golway) (Naperville, IL:

Sourcebooks Sourcebooks, Inc., is an independent book publisher located in Naperville, Illinois. The company publishes books, ebooks, and digital products, and is one of the 20 largest publishers in the United States. History The company was founded in 1 ...

, 2006
read online
* ''Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power'' (New York:

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News ...

, 2007
Review in New York Times
* ''Harry S. Truman: The 33rd President, 1945-1953'' (

Times Books Times Books (previously the New York Times Book Company) is a publishing imprint owned by the New York Times Company and licensed to Henry Holt and Company. Times Books began as the New York Times Book Company in 1969, when The New York Times Com ...

, 2008, ) * ''The Lost Peace: Leadership in a Time of Horror and Hope, 1945–1953'' (

, 2010,
Review in Foreign Affairs
* ''Camelot's Court: Inside the Kennedy White House'' (New York:

, 2013
Review in Washington Post
* ''Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life'' (New York:

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

, 2017, )

Journal articles

* 'Franklin Roosevelt as world leader', ''The American Historical Review'', 76 (1971): 1503–1513 * 'National mood and American foreign policy: a suggestive essay', ''American Quarterly'', 34 (1982): 229–261 * 'Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam: the making of a tragedy', ''Diplomatic History'', 20 (1996): 147 * 'Tales of the tapes', ''Reviews in American History'', 26 (1998): 333–338 * 'John F. Kennedy's Civil Rights Quandary.' American History 38.3 (2003): 36

Essays in edited volumes

* ''American perceptions of the Soviet Union'', in Abbott Gleason (ed.), ''Cold War-Cold Peace: Soviet American Relations, 1933–1983'' (Boston: Beacon Press, 1975) * 'Triumphant America in a shaken world', in Sanford J. Ungar (ed.), ''Estrangement: America and the World''(New York: Oxford University Press, 1985) * ''When Presidents Become Weak'', in Walter Isaacson (ed.), ''Profiles in Leadership: Historians on the Elusive Quality of Greatness'' (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011)

TV appearances

Dallek appeared on '' The Daily Show'' in July 2007. He has made numerous appearances on

CNN 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 ...

and on public television and radio, including several on-camera comments included the History Channel's "JFK:A Presidency Revealed" and the American Experience biographies "F.D.R." and "LBJ."

References

External links

UCLA Profile
*
''Booknotes'' interview with Dallek on ''Lone Star Rising''
September 22, 1991
C-SPAN ''Q&A'' interview with Dallek on ''Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power''
April 29, 2007
Robert Dallek on Three Last Questions about JFK (audiocast)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dallek, Robert 1934 births Living people Jewish American historians University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni Columbia University alumni Columbia University faculty Boston University faculty 20th-century American historians 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American historians University of California, Los Angeles faculty Harold Vyvyan Harmsworth Professors of American History Bancroft Prize winners American male non-fiction writers Historians from California 21st-century American Jews