Irwin Unger

Irwin Unger was Professor Emeritus of History at New York University, where he taught for 40 years beginning in 1966. Prior to his long tenure at NYU, he served on the faculty at California State University, Long Beach, and the University of California, Davis. Unger's academic background includes a bachelor’s degree from the City College of New York, a master’s degree from the University of Washington in Seattle, and a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1958, earned under the guidance of historian David Herbert Donald. To enhance his comprehension of the American landscape, he journeyed across the United States by bus.

Unger's scholarly pursuits centered on United States history, encompassing the Civil War and Reconstruction periods, the New Left movement, the Progressive Era, the 1960s, and later decades. He authored or co-authored eight monographs and six textbooks that integrated political, economic, and social dimensions of history, drawing on both traditional and nontraditional sources to stimulate critical analysis among students and scholars. His landmark publication, The Greenback Era: A Social and Political History of American Finance, 1865–1879 (Princeton University Press, 1964), earned the 1965 Pulitzer Prize for History by demonstrating continuity in American society before and after the Civil War while critiquing economic determinism and binary interpretations. Other significant works include The Movement: A History of the American New Left, 1959–1972 (Dodd, Mead, 1974); The Vulnerable Years: The United States, 1896–1917 (New York University Press, 1977); Turning Point, 1968 (Scribner, 1988, with Debi Unger); The Best of Intentions: The Triumphs and Failures of the Great Society under Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon (Doubleday, 1996); LBJ: A Life (Wiley, 1999, with Debi Unger); The Guggenheims: A Family History (HarperCollins, 2005, with Debi Unger); and George Marshall: A Biography (Harper, 2014, with Debi Unger and Stanley Hirshson). His textbooks featured Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction (with Paul Goodman, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970); multiple editions of These United States: The Questions of Our Past (Pearson, 1978 onward); Instant American History: Through the Civil War and Reconstruction (Fawcett Columbine, 1994); several editions of American Issues: A Primary Source Reader in United States History (with Robert Tomes, Pearson, 2001); and Recent America: The United States since 1945 (Pearson, 2001). As a mentor to graduate students at NYU, Unger stressed meticulous critical analysis, logical structure, and precise expression. He passed away on May 21, 2021.