obituaries

Ronald Steel, Biographer of Walter Lippman and RFK, Dies at 92

A prolific public intellectual, Steel wrote influential critiques of America's cold war foreign policy, calling military buildups wasteful and counterproductive. This led him to his masterwork, a biography of the influential newspaper columnist, a major shaper of 20th century American politics. 

Howard Lamar, Historian of American West and Yale's President, Dies at 99

The historian was praised by colleagues and former students for his scholarship, mentorship and personal warmth. 

Roslyn Pope, 84: Co-Author of "Appeal to Human Rights" Catalyzed Atlanta Student Movement

Pope and co-author Julian Bond punctured Atlanta's self-satisfied mythology as "the city too busy to hate" by cataloguing the institutional and cultural attacks on Black residents' dignity, demanding change. 

Remembering Victor Navasky: Editor was a "Ringmaster" at "The Nation"

As the editor of the left-leaning magazine, Navasky was comfortable allowing (and sometimes encouraging) liberals, socialists, and radicals of other varieties duke out their intraleft disagreements in print. 

Clark U.'s William Koelsch, Pioneering LGBTQ Historian, Dies at 89

Beginning in the 1970s, Koelsch was one of the first professors to teach about the gay liberation movement and incorporated the HIV-AIDS crisis into his courses on health and disease. 

Gaddis Smith, 89: Legacy of Teaching and Modernizing at Yale

"Dr. Smith was a Yale institution. He arrived on campus as a freshman in 1950, received his doctorate from the university in 1961, and, aside from a short teaching stint at Duke, never left."

Farewell, Brother Staughton

by Carl Mirra

Staughton Lynd was always in the trenches fighting for a better world, and for that he remains a “admirable radical” and, for that matter, a beautiful person.

Mike Davis Could See the Future

by Hua Hsu

Often wrongly called a "prophet of doom," Mike Davis worked to show how digging up the past could point the way to a humane future. 

California Historians and Writers Remember Mike Davis

Matt Garcia, William Deverell and others share personal reflections on their personal and professional intersections with the mold-breaking historian and activist. 

H. Chandler Davis Was a Moral Touchstone for Scholars on the Left

by Alan Wald

Blacklisted from American academe after defying a HUAC investigation at the University of Michigan, the mathematician (and the spouse of historian Natalie Zemon Davis) continued to teach and work as an activist in Canada until his recent death at 96. 

Joyce Reynolds Transformed History of Imperial Rome

Using painstaking archaeological methods, Reynolds laid a new foundation for understanding how Rome related to its eastern provinces. 

Barbara Ehrenreich Challenged Readers to Examine Themselves

by Gabriel Winant

The journalist and social theorist wrote to force her readers to examine their own positions in society's hierarchies, not to encourage cynicism of futility, but to encourage them to see change as a long haul. 

Gorbachev Became a Hero to the West Through Massive Failure

by Erik Loomis

Americans need to evaluate Gorbachev outside of their own nationalist perspective, despite feeling that the end of the Cold War was a good thing. The people he affected most see him as a failure. 

Ultimately, David McCullough Succeeded by "Writing the Book I Wanted to Read"

by Cary Heinz

When the author loaned his father a copy of McCullough's Truman biography, "he not only read it, but loaned it to enough people that I eventually got it back with the book’s spine split in half," a testament to his narrative gifts.

Janice Longone, Chronicler of American Food Traditions

Longone's recovery of cookbooks from immigrant and ethnic communities highlighted both diversity in American food culture and the labor of women in organizing it. 

Paul Ginsbourg: London-Born, Florence-Based Historian of Modern Europe

Energized by student protests at Cambridge in 1968, Ginsbourg was drawn to study the European revolutions of 1848 and rise of the modern Italian nation. 

Madeleine Albright Had Warned the World about Putin

Madeleine Albright's path to being Secretary of State began with her experiences fleeing Prague twice – to escape both Nazism and Stalinism. 

Richard Dunn, Eminent Historian of Early America and Caribbean, Dies at 93

Dunn, among other achievements, founded what is now the McNeil Center for Early American Studies. 

Lisa Brodyaga, Crusading Lawyer for Immigrants’ Rights, Dies at 81

“I like to be underestimated,” she once told law students at the University of Miami. “I like to have people think, ‘She’s just a hick lawyer.’” She added: “Go ahead, I dare you. Dismiss me.”

Jonathan Spence, Noted China Scholar, Dies at 85

Spence taught for four decades at Yale, and published a number of popular and critically acclaimed books on the vast history of modern China.