Boorstin, Daniel Joseph

▪ 2005

      American social historian (b. Oct. 1, 1914, Atlanta, Ga.—d. Feb. 28, 2004, Washington, D.C.), recounted in his writings the importance of ordinary objects that shape daily life and warned that modern methods of communication were—in an effort to gain the interest of readers or viewers—creating illusions rather than disseminating knowledge. Boorstin majored in English history and literature at Harvard University (B.A., 1934). He obtained a Rhodes scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford, where he took first-class degrees in history (1936) and civil law (1937). Boorstin was admitted to the bar at the Inner Temple in London before returning to the U.S., where he taught history at Harvard and Radcliffe College while he earned his law degree (1940) at Yale University. He was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1942 and practiced law while teaching history at Swarthmore College. In 1944 Boorstin joined the history faculty at the University of Chicago, where he remained until 1969. Boorstin was briefly a member of the Communist Party during the late 1930s but became increasingly conservative in his political views over time; in 1953 he presented the House Un-American Activities Committee with the names of other communists. He became increasingly conservative and was a severe critic of the radicals of the 1960s. Among Boorstin's principal writings were The Lost World of Thomas Jefferson (1948); The Genius of American Politics (1953); The Image, or What Happened to the American Dream (1962; published in paperback as The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America), in which he analyzed the influence of the media on American culture; and his especially popular trilogy on the social history of the United States, The Americans, comprising The Colonial Experience (1958), The National Experience (1965), and The Democratic Experience (1973), which received the Pulitzer Prize for history in 1974. His later works included The Discoverers (1983), The Creators (1992), and The Seekers (1998), a trilogy about geographic, creative, and intellectual discovery. In 1969 he became director of the National Museum of History and Technology at the Smithsonian Institution, now known as the American History Museum. Despite some liberal opposition, Boorstin was appointed librarian of Congress in 1975; in this post he attempted to make the institution more accessible to the public by ordering the large bronze doors to be kept open, installing a picnic area on the terrace, and organizing concerts and cultural events. He also served (1983–88) on the Encyclopædia Britannica board of editors.

* * *