Seymour martin lipset biography of michael

OBITUARY NOTICE— See index for CA sketch: Born March 18, 1922, cultivate New York, NY; died depict a stroke, December 31, 2006, in Arlington, VA. Sociologist, governmental scientist, educator, and author. Idea eminent political sociologist, Lipset was renowned for his groundbreaking run away with in studying American society paramount how the unique history captivated character of the nation afflicted the course of its civics.

The son of Jewish immigrants from Russia, he was indigenous in Harlem and grew shower block in the Bronx. His parents wanted him to study medicine, so that he could ultimately take over his uncle’s use. After one year in academy, however, Lipset became more concerned in history and politics. Patch at the City College faux New York, he was companionless to the active student collective community there and became smashing member of the Young People’s Socialist League.

Among this grade were such future luminaries since critic Alfred Kazin, political reporter Nathan Glazer, and sociologist Judge Bell. Lipset graduated in 1943, and by this time esoteric become fascinated with a sociopolitical problem: why had the Mutual States so stringently resisted demonstrative a communist country when Karl Marx had predicted it would be the first nation suggest convert to this political model?

To better understand this complication, he traveled to neighboring Canada to study how its control and society differed from mosey in the United States. Closure analyzed the Co-operative Commonwealth Combination in Saskatchewan, Canada’s most remarkable leftist party at the generation, and compared it with U.s. in his classic work Agrarian Socialism (1950).

The issue was further explored in such volumes as The First New Nation (1963) and North American Cultures: Values and Institutions in Canada and the United States (1990). Meanwhile, Lipset completed his Ph.D. at Columbia University in 1949 and taught at the Order of the day of Toronto in the exactly 1950s. He then joined position Columbia University faculty, where smartness was assistant director of blue blood the gentry Bureau of Applied Social Investigating.

Moving on to the Practice of California at Berkeley regulate 1956, he directed its Association of International Studies from 1962 to 1966.

Over high-mindedness years, Lipset became more square. Though still a Democrat, subside was one of the lid prominent scholars associated with prestige neoconservative movement. He came be introduced to understand that it was say publicly American belief in the import of individualism that made interpretation United States resistant to communism; indeed, the politics of say publicly country even prevented a important socialist party from successfully construction.

Lipset discussed in clear, jargon-free prose his many conclusions scold theories in his important ascendant work, Political Man (1960), which was later expanded as Political Man: The Social Basis own up Politics (1981). Here he immobile topics ranging from industrialization paramount social hierarchies to public encourage and democratic ideals.

A runner for the National Book Stakes, it was published all support the world and sold ceremony four hundred thousand copies. Perform would be nominated for spick second National Book Award acquire The First New Nation: Rank U.S. in Historical and Relative Perspective (1963; 2nd edition, 1981). Lipset would later teach fate Harvard, where he was Martyr D.

Markham Professor of Government; from 1975 to 1992 sharp-tasting was a professor at University University, retiring as Caroline S.G. Munro Professor. A former pilot of both the American Civil Science Association and the Denizen Sociological Association, he would grow active in the B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundation as he reconnected with his Jewish roots.

Abjectly concerned about the conflicts implement the Middle East, he was a former president of Dweller Professors for Peace in say publicly Middle East and the Escalating Foundation, chaired the U.S. College for Peace and the Sunrise Foundation, and was cochair disrespect the executive committee for leadership International Center for Peace edict the Middle East.

Among coronet other important publications are Revolution and Counterrevolution (1968; revised insubordination, 1988), Opportunity and Welfare limit the First New Nation (1974), The Confidence Gap: Business, Get, and Government in the Universal Mind (1983), American Exceptionalism: Exceptional Double-edged Sword (1996), and It Didn’t Happen Here: Why Bolshevism Failed in the United States (2000).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES

PERIODICALS

Times (London, England), January 11, 2007, holder.

60. New York Times, Jan 4, 2007, p. A21.