Maurice Isserman

Maurice Isserman
Isserman in 2008
Born	(1951-03-12) March 12, 1951 Hartford, Connecticut, US
Academic background
Alma mater	Reed College University of Rochester
Doctoral advisor	Eugene Genovese
Academic work
Discipline	History
Institutions	Hamilton College
Main interests	History of American communism history of the New Left

Maurice Isserman (born 1951) is a Professor of History at Hamilton College. He has written about the Communist Party USA during the Popular Front period of the 1930s and 1940s, as well as the emergence of the New Left and the 1960s. He co-authored a biography with Dorothy Ray Healey and authored a biography of Michael Harrington, both of whom were co-founders of Democratic Socialists of America. He has contributed editorials and book reviews to The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Newsday, the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, and The American Alpine Review. In 2008, he began writing about mountaineering.

Political views

Isserman has criticized the new Students for a Democratic Society for romanticizing the leadership of the Weatherman faction of the old SDS.

Awards

• 2008: National Outdoor Book Award, Fallen Giants (with Stewart Weaver).

Works

Books

• Isserman, Maurice. (1982) Which Side Were You On? The American Communist Party during the Second World War. ISBN 978-0-252-06336-7
• Isserman, Maurice. (1987). If I Had a Hammer... The Death of the Old Left and the Birth of the New Left. ISBN 0-465-03197-8
• Isserman, Maurice & Healey Dorothy. (1990). Dorothy Healey Remembers: A Life in the American Communist Party. ISBN 0-19-503819-3
  • Reprinted as California Red: A Life in the American Communist Party (1993). ISBN 978-0-252-06278-0
• Isserman, Maurice & Bowman, John Stewart. (1992). America at War: The Korean War. ISBN 978-0816026883
• Isserman, Maurice. (1995). Witness to War: Vietnam. ISBN 978-0399521621
• Isserman, Maurice. (1997). Journey to Freedom: The African American Great Migration. ISBN 9780816034130
• Isserman, Maurice & Kazin, Michael. (2000). America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s. ISBN 0-19-516047-9
• Isserman, Maurice. (2000).The Other American: The Life of Michael Harrington. ISBN 1-58648-036-7
• Isserman, Maurice & Bowman, John. (2005). Exploring North America, 1800-1900. ISBN 0816052638
• Isserman, Maurice & Weaver, Stewart. (2008). Fallen Giants: The History of Himalayan Mountaineering from the Age of Empire to the Age of Extremes. ISBN 978-0300164206
• Isserman, Maurice & Bowman, John Stewart. (2010). America at War: World War II. ISBN 978-0816081851
• Isserman, Maurice; Kenan, William R.; & Bowman, John Stewart. (2010). America at War: Vietnam War. ISBN 978-0816081875
• Isserman, Maurice & Bowman, John Stewart. (2010). Across America: The Lewis And Clark Expedition. ISBN 9781604131925
• Isserman, Maurice. (2011). On The Hill: A Bicentennial History of Hamilton College 1812–2012. ISBN 978-0615432090
• Cronkite, Walter & Isserman, Maurice. (2013). Cronkite's War: His World War II Letters Home. ISBN 978-1426210198
• Isserman, Maurice. (2016). Continental Divide: A History of American Mountaineering. ISBN 978-0393353761
• Isserman, Maurice. (2019). The Winter Army: The World War II Odyssey of the 10th Mountain Division, America's Elite Alpine Warriors. ISBN 978-1328871435
• Isserman, Maurice. (2024). Reds: The Tragedy of American Communism. ISBN 978-1541620032

Articles

On October 20, 2017, Isserman contributed to "Red Century," a New York Times centenary series about the Bolshevik Revolution, with the article "When New York City Was the Capital of American Communism."

• "How Old is the New SDS?" The Chronicle of Higher Education (October 19, 2007)
• "The Flower in the Gun Barrel," The Chronicle of Higher Education (October 19, 2007)
• "3 Days of Peace and Music, 40 Years of Memory," The Chronicle of Higher Education (October 19, 2007)
• "When New York City Was the Capital of American Communism," New York Times "Red Century" series (October 20, 2017)

See also

• Historians of American Communism

External links

• Maurice Isserman's Homepage at Hamilton College
• Interview with Maurice Isserman by Stephen McKiernan, Binghamton University Libraries Center for the Study of the 1960s