IRA KATZNELSON

Ira Katznelson is currently Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History at Columbia University. Professor Katznelson has a PhD from Columbia and a BA from Cambridge University, both in History.

An Americanist whose work has straddled comparative politics and political theory, as well a political and social history, he returned in the Fall 1994 to Columbia, where he had been an assistant and associate professor from 1969-1974. In the interim, he taught at the University of Chicago, chairing its department of political science from 1979 to 1982, and the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research, where he was Dean from 1983-1989. His books include Black Men, White Cities (Oxford University Press, 1973), City Trenches: Urban Politics and the Patterning of Class in the United States (Pantheon Books, 1981), Schooling for All (co-authored with Margaret Weir, Basic Books, 1985), Working Class Formation (co-edited with Aristide Zolberg, Princeton University Press, 1986) and Paths of Emancipation: Jews, States, and Citizenship (edited with Pierre Birnbaum, Princeton University Press, 1995).

His book on the making and character of post-war American liberalism, Liberalism’s Crooked Circle: Letters to Adam Michnik , won the American Political Science’s Michael Harrington Book Award for "the best book published in 1996 that shows how scholarship can be used in the struggle for a better world" and a Lionel Trilling Book Award from Columbia University for best book by a member of the University’s faculty. Professor Katznelson has served as President of the Section on Politics and History of the American Political Science Association (1992-93) and President of the Social Science History Association (1997-1998), co-edits the Princeton Series in American Politics, and serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Russell Sage Foundation.

Professor Katznelson’s numerous publications, reviews and lectures have been presented widely in cultural and political forums both in the United States and Europe.

His multifaceted research interests include American politics, comparative politics, political theory, urban politics, European studies, race relations, class formation, ethnicity and religion, education, urban geography, social movements, political parties.

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