Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. Dead at 89
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. has died of a heart attack at the age of 89.
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., the historian whose more than 20 books shaped discussions for two generations about America’s past and who himself was a provocative, unabashedly liberal partisan, most notably in serving in the Kennedy White House, died last night in Manhattan. He was 89.
The cause was a heart attack, said Mr. Schlesinger’s son Stephen. He died at New York Downtown Hospital after being stricken in a restaurant.
Twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, Mr. Schlesinger exhaustively examined the administrations of two prominent presidents, Andrew Jackson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, against a vast background of regional and economic rivalries. He strongly argued that strong individuals like Jackson and Roosevelt could bend history.
The notes he took for President John F. Kennedy to use in writing his own history, became, after the president’s assassination, grist for Mr. Schlesinger’s own “A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House,” winner of both the Pulitzer and a National Book Award in 1966.
He lived a long, incredibly productive life.
I don’t think I’ve read a single one of his books — I have an aversion to Jackson, and only slightly less to JFK. Now, of course, that he’s dead, I will probably read something … isn’t that how it usually goes?
I’ve read his exhaustive JFK and FDR pieces: he may have been a little too close to both of them to call them objective tomes, but they are both invaluable slices of American history. I probably should read the Jackson one as well.
Ah, I was wondering whether to read the FDR volumes.
Read his Age of Jackson in college some, dare I say it?, 30+ years ago. Not one I would re-read and not one of my favorite texts, yet a significant and important one in that the book explained the evolution of American practices of politics, partisanship and faction in the decades between the Revolution and the Civil War. As for highly readable history (Horrors!) I much prefer David McCullough and Paul Johnson (just two examples)