American historian (1935–2009)
John Patrick Diggins (April 1, 1935 – January 28, 2009) was an American professor of history at the University of California, Irvine, Princeton University, and the City University of New York Graduate Center.
He was the author/editor of more than a dozen books and thirty articles on widely varied topics in U.S. intellectual history.
Early life and education
Diggins was born in San Francisco to John Diggins Sr., who worked for the City of San Francisco as a gardener, and Anne Naughton Diggins. Both of
his parents were immigrants from Ireland. Raised in a Roman Catholic household, he attended and graduated from Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory School.
Diggins received a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1957, a master's degree from San Francisco State College, and a doctorate in History from the University of Southern California in 1964. He was an assistant professor at San Francisco State College from 1963 to 1969; an associate professor, and then full professor at the University of California, Irvine from 1969 to 1990; and from 1990, a Distinguished Professor at the CUNY Graduate Center.[1]
Career
Diggins taught history at San Francisco State University until 1969, when he accepted a position at UC Irvine. There, he served as an associate professor. In 1990, Diggins moved to City University of New York Graduate Center (CUNY), where he stayed for two decades. He served as acting director of the Graduate Center from 1996 to 1997. For a year, Diggins held the chair in American Civilization at the École des hautes études, Paris, and was also a visiting professor at Cambridge and Princeton Universities. Additionally, Diggins was a consultant and frequent lecturer at the University of London and Columbia University.[2]
Diggins' first book was Mussolini and Fascism: The View from America, in which he described the popularity of the Italian dictator prior to World War II and the reaction to him in the U.S. The book won Diggins the 1972 John H. Dunning Prize. He then wrote The American Left in the Twentieth Century" (1973), which was later revised in 1992 as "The Rise and Fall of the American Left. In this book, Diggins was critical of the New Left and even tougher on the academic left, which had to a considerable extent inspired the New Left. He was also dismissive of the trendy postmodernist ideas of Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida.[3] His next book was Up from Communism, which described four prominent doctrinaire liberal thinkers who changed their ideology to embrace conservatism.
In his best-seller Ronald Reagan: Fate, Freedom, and the Making of History, Diggins asserted that Reagan was treated dismissively, and that his virtues were truly liberal. That view had been contrary to Diggins's original view of Reagan as governor of California during the 1960s Berkeley protests, in which Reagan, as Diggins remembered, seemed to be "standing for tear gas and police"[4] Diggins declared Reagan to be "one of the three or four truly great presidents in U.S. history."[5] He stated that his view of Reagan changed upon reading Reagan's writings that were released after Reagan's death. Diggins concluded that
Reagan was, in fact, "far from conservative" and more on the liberal side of the ideological spectrum.[4] Instead of the previous left-wing assumptions about him, Diggins wrote, "Reagan was the great liberating spirit of modern American history, a political romantic impatient with the status quo."[4]
Diggins' last book was Why Niebuhr Now?, describing the shifting political loyalties of Reinhold Niebuhr. The book was published posthumously
in 2011.
An obituary reported that Diggins "was "critical of the anti-capitalist Left for seeing in the abolition of property an end to oppression." but also "critical of the anti-government Right for seeing in the eradication of political authority the end of tyranny and the restoration of liberty."[6] He stated, "I am left of right and right of left".
Diggins was a consultant[citation needed] on various documentary films, including "Between the Wars;" "Reds;" "John Dos Passos;" "The Greenwich Village Rebellion"; " Emma Goldman;" "The New York Intellectuals;" "The Future of the American Left;" and "Il Duce, Fascismo e American" (Italian television). Diggins also appeared in numerous interviews with C-SPAN.
Diggins earned a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1975, became a resident scholar at the Rockefeller Foundation in 1989, and was nominated for the National Book Award for History.[7]
He was a critically acclaimed member of the American Historical Association, American Studies Association, and American Philosophical Society[8] After his death, the John Patrick Diggins '53 Endowed Scholarship was created in his name at Sacred Heart Preparatory School in San Francisco[9]
Criticism
In a review of Diggins' Ronald Reagan: Fate, Freedom, and the Making of History Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review, wrote,
Diggins seems blinded by Reagan's sunniness, which, in this interpretation, was not just a matter of temperament, but reflective of a deep philosophical and religious conviction. Reagan, Diggins maintains, sought to rid "America of a God of judgment and punishment." This is absurd. Reagan
had a charitable view of human nature and a relaxed, nonjudgmental air, but there is no denying his deeply felt social conservatism. He wrote – as a sitting president, no less – the anti-abortion tract "Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation".[4]
Personal life
Diggins' marriage to his wife, Judith, ended in divorce. As a California native, he lived in Laguna Beach, California, for years while he taught at UC Irvine. Later, Diggins lived on the Upper West Side in Manhattan while teaching at CUNY Graduate Center. He died in Manhattan on January 28, 2009, after a battle with Colorectal cancer. He was survived by his companion of fifteen years, the author Elizabeth Harlan; a son and a daughter; two sisters; and two grandchildren.[5]
