Morton M. Grodzins (11 August 1917 – 7 March 1964) was a professor of

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and ...

at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

, as well as a

dean Dean may refer to: People * Dean (given name) * Dean (surname), a surname of Anglo-Saxon English origin * Dean (South Korean singer), a stage name for singer Kwon Hyuk * Dean Delannoit, a Belgian singer most known by the mononym Dean Titles * ...

of the school and an editor at

Chicago University Press The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including ''The Chicago Manual of Style'', ...

. He is known for coining the term " tipping point" in studies of

white flight White flight or white exodus is the sudden or gradual large-scale migration of white people from areas becoming more racially or ethnoculturally diverse. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the terms became popular in the United States. They refer ...

, such as "Metropolitan Segregation" (1957) and ''The Metropolitan Area as a Racial Problem'' (1958). His theories related to Tipping Point were later made famous by

Malcolm Gladwell Malcolm Timothy Gladwell (born 3 September 1963) is an English-born Canadian journalist, author, and public speaker. He has been a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' since 1996. He has published seven books: '' The Tipping Point: How Little ...

and his book, "

The Tipping Point ''The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference'' is the debut book by Malcolm Gladwell, first published by Little, Brown in 2000. Gladwell defines a tipping point as "the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling po ...

." His book ''Americans Betrayed'' (1949) was the first major study criticizing the

Japanese-American internment are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 census, they have declined in number to constitute the sixth largest Asi ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, based on his and others' work at the Japanese-American Evacuation and Resettlement Study at

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...

. His book ''Making un-Americans'' (1955) looked at

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...

paranoia in a critical light. Owing to his concern about the threat of nuclear war, he played a leading role in the

Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs The Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs is an international organization that brings together scholars and public figures to work toward reducing the danger of armed conflict and to seek solutions to global security threats. It was f ...

. He also wrote major studies of American

federalism Federalism is a combined or compound mode of government that combines a general government (the central or "federal" government) with regional governments ( provincial, state, cantonal, territorial, or other sub-unit governments) in a single ...

, in which he criticized the idea that the federal, state, and local governments operated distinctly from one another. He argued that the governments resembled a marble cake where the different flavors blended together rather than remaining in layers. This concept of

cooperative federalism Cooperative federalism, also known as marble-cake federalism, is defined as a flexible relationship between the federal and state governments in which both work together on a variety of issues and programs. In the United States In the American f ...

was distinct from

dual federalism Dual federalism, also known as layer-cake federalism or divided sovereignty, is a political arrangement in which power is divided between the federal and state governments in clearly defined terms, with state governments exercising those powers ...

Works

*''Americans Betrayed: Politics and the Japanese Evacuation'', 1949. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Metropolitan Segregation
, 1957. Scientific American 197:33–47. *
The Metropolitan Area as a Racial Problem
', 1958. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. *''The American System: A New View of the Government of the United States'', 1966. New York: Rand McNally. *''The Federal System''.

References

*(Obituary) Morton Grodzins, political scientist. ''New York Times'', Mar 10, 1964.

External links

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Morton Grodzins
in Densho Encyclopedia 1917 births 1964 deaths American political scientists University of Chicago faculty 20th-century political scientists {{US-polisci-bio-stub