Julian Zelizer

Julian E. Zelizer is the Malcolm Stevenson Forbes, Class of 1941 Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University, where he has served since 2007, following appointments at Boston University and the State University of New York at Albany. He earned a Ph.D. in History from The Johns Hopkins University in 1996, an M.A. from the same institution in 1993, and a B.A. summa cum laude from Brandeis University in 1991. A pioneer in the revival of American political history, Zelizer's research centers on Congress, the presidency, national security policy, and the political developments of twentieth- and twenty-first-century United States history.

Zelizer has garnered fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, Brookings Institution, Russell Sage Foundation, and New-York Historical Society, along with book awards including the Organization of American Historians' Ellis Hawley Prize (2000) for Taxing America: Wilbur D. Mills, Congress, and the State, 1945-1975 and D.B. Hardeman Prizes (1998, 2018). He is the author or editor of more than 27 books, such as On Capitol Hill: The Struggle to Reform Congress and its Consequences, 1948-2000 (2004); Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security—From World War II to the War on Terrorism (2010); Jimmy Carter (2010); Governing America: The Revival of Political History (2012); The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society (2015); Fault Lines: A History of the United States Since 1974 (2019, co-authored with Kevin M. Kruse); Burning Down the House: Newt Gingrich, the Fall of a Speaker, and the Rise of the New Republican Party (2020); Abraham Joshua Heschel: A Life of Radical Amazement (2021); Myth America: Historians Take on the Biggest Lies and Legends About Our Past (2023, co-edited); and In Defense of Partisanship (2025). As a public intellectual, he contributes as a CNN political analyst, Foreign Policy columnist, NPR guest, Substack publisher of The Long View, and co-editor of Princeton University Press's Politics and Society in Twentieth-Century America series, with over 1,400 op-eds published.

Professional Email: jzelizer@princeton.edu