Joshua Zeitz

Joshua Zeitz is a historian and the author most recently of Lincoln Boys, a biography of the President's two closest aides and their many accomplishments after the Civil War, including efforts to document Lincoln's achievements. "Zeitz has pulled off a difficult task -- revealing how the myth of Lincoln came to be without distorting the true greatness of our extraordinary 16th President," said filmmaker Ken Burns about the book.

Previously, Zeitz wrote several other books including Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the Women Who Made America Modern, and White Ethnic New York: Jews, Catholics, and the Shaping of Postwar Politics.

In addition to writing frequently for American Heritage, Zeitz has published articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, The Atlantic, and Dissent. He appeared as a commentator on two PBS documentaries – Boomer Century, and Ken Burns' Prohibition — and has commented on public policy matters on CNBC and CNN International.

After earning his Ph.D. in American History from Brown University, Zeitz lectured at Harvard University, Cambridge University, and Rutgers University. And in 2008 he was candidate for New Jersey's 4th District in the House of Representatives.

Articles by

Joshua

Zeitz

Articles by this Author

Looking Back on the Clinton Impeachment, Winter 2019 | Vol. 64, No. 1

The Senate convened twenty years ago to determine whether President Bill Clinton had committed "high crimes and misdemeanors"

Lincoln's Boys, Spring 2018 | Vol. 63, No. 1

John Nicolay and John Hay were Lincoln’s two closest aides in the White House, and helped to craft the image of the President we have today.

Joseph Ellis Explains Just How Revolutionary The Revolution Was, Winter 2008 | Vol. 58, No. 1

1964 - The Year The Sixties Began, October 2006 | Vol. 57, No. 5

Viewing a transformation that still affects all of us—through the prism of a single year

Boomer Century, October 2005 | Vol. 56, No. 5

What’s going to happen when the most prosperous, best-educated generation in history finally grows up? (And just how special are the baby boomers?)

Democratic Debacle, June/July 2004 | Vol. 55, No. 3

The Republican party ensured a landslide defeat when it nominated Barry Goldwater in 1964, but the Democrats did far more lasting damage to themselves at their convention that year. In fact, they still haven’t recovered.

Disunited Nations, August/September 2003 | Vol. 54, No. 4

Why the UN was in trouble from the start

Dixie’s Victory, August/September 2002 | Vol. 53, No. 4

The old Confederacy got only as far north as Pennsylvania, but its great-grandchildren have captured America’s culture. Joshua Zeitz looks at sports, entertainment, and religion to show how.

Are Our Liberties In Peril?, November/December 2001 | Vol. 52, No. 8

Facing a nearly invisible enemy, we all may be subjected to new kinds of government scrutiny. But past wars suggest the final result may be greater freedom.

Back To The Barricades, October 2001 | Vol. 52, No. 7

For the first time in a generation, student activism is on the rise. Do these new protesters have anything like the zeal, the conviction, and the clout of their famous 1960s predecessors?

"WEB ONLY STORIES" BY THIS CONTRIBUTOR

What Did Martin Luther King Really Believe?

King meets with President Lyndon B. Johnson at the White House, 1966. (LBJ LIBRARY/PHOTO BY YOICHI R. OKAMOTO) Monday marks the seventy-eighth birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the civil rights hero who was gunned down in Memphis in April 1968 at the age of 39. Since King’s death,…

Re: Plamegate

This is not a hands-in-the-cookie-jar scandal like Teapot Dome, which sent an attorney general to jail. It is not a serious breach-of-national-security scandal like the Pumpkin Papers, which sent Alger Hiss to jail. It is not an old fashioned corruption scandal like the vicuna coat affair that cost…

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