A01=Steven J. Harper
academe
academia
Author_Steven J. Harper
Category=JN
Category=JNM
Category=NHAH
chicago
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Evanston
higher education
Historiography
history
jewish americans
jewish studies
Midwest
Northwestern University
second world war
twentieth century
world war ii
Product details
- ISBN 9780810139152
- Weight: 333g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 30 Apr 2019
- Publisher: Northwestern University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Author Steven J. Harper pays tribute to a well-respected teacher with this biography of a distinguished William Smith Mason Professor of History at Northwestern University, Richard W. Leopold. Harper had maintained contact with his former professor, as had hundreds of other alumni, meeting with him in the apartment to which his age and health confined him. When Leopold invited him to review his biographical materials to prepare a New York Times obituary, Harper began to catch glimpses of a deeper history in Leopold's life: that of Jews in America after the turn of the century.
Across two years of Sundays, Leopold's life came together and Harper began to notice parallels between the life of his professor and the life of his recently deceased father-in-law. Both grew up in less orthodox households but were still identified as Jewish by others; both attended Ivy League colleges, fighting (and beating) anti-Semitism there; and both served their country with distinction in World War II. The two men persevered through a twentieth century Jewish-American experience that they and many others shared, but rarely discussed. Steven Harper has caught them both on the page just in time to document their lives, their culture, and the nation that grew and changed alongside them.
Across two years of Sundays, Leopold's life came together and Harper began to notice parallels between the life of his professor and the life of his recently deceased father-in-law. Both grew up in less orthodox households but were still identified as Jewish by others; both attended Ivy League colleges, fighting (and beating) anti-Semitism there; and both served their country with distinction in World War II. The two men persevered through a twentieth century Jewish-American experience that they and many others shared, but rarely discussed. Steven Harper has caught them both on the page just in time to document their lives, their culture, and the nation that grew and changed alongside them.
Steven J. Harper is a partner in the law firm of Kirkland and Ellis. He completed his undergraduate work at Northwestern University and his graduate work at Harvard. He is the author of Crossing Hoffa: A Teamster’s Story.
