Daniel J. Boorstin

Daniel J. Boorstin

Daniel Joseph Boorstin (October 1, 1914 – February 28, 2004) was an American historian, professor, attorney, and writer. He was appointed twelfth Librarian of the United States Congress from 1975 until 1987.

Biography

Boorstin was born in 1914 in Atlanta, Georgia into a Jewish family, his father was a lawyer who participated in the defense of Leo Frank, a Jewish factory superintendent who was accused of the rape and murder of a teenage girl. After Frank's 1915 lynching led to a surge of anti-Semitic sentiment in Georgia, the family moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Boorstin was raised. He graduated from Tulsa's Central High School at the age of 15. He graduated with highest honors from Harvard, studied at Balliol College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and earned his PhD at Yale University. He was a lawyer and a university professor at the University of Chicago for 25 years and was the Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions at the University of Cambridge in 1964. He also served as director of the National Museum of History and Technology of the Smithsonian Institution. Boorstin wrote more than 20 books, including a trilogy on the American experience and one on world intellectual history. The Americans: The Democratic Experience, the final book in the first trilogy, received the 1974 Pulitzer Prize in history. Boorstin also wrote the books The Discoverers, The Creators and The Seekers, a trilogy of books that attempt to survey the scientific, artistic and philosophic histories of humanity, respectively.

Within the discipline of social theory, Boorstin’s 1961 book The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-events in America is an early, description of aspects of American life that were later termed hyperreality and postmodernity. In The Image, Boorstin describes shifts in American culture — mainly due to advertising — where the reproduction or simulation of an event becomes more important or "real" than the event itself. He goes on to coin the term pseudo-event which describes events or activities that serve little to no purpose other than to be reproduced through advertisements or other forms of publicity. The idea of pseudo-events closely mirrors work later done by Jean Baudrillard and Guy Debord. The work is still often used as a text in American sociology courses.

When President Gerald Ford nominated Boorstin to be Librarian of Congress, the nomination was supported by the Authors League of America but opposed by the American Library Association because Boorstin "was not a library administrator." The Senate confirmed the nomination without debate.

Boorstin died in 2004 in Washington, D.C.

Honors

Boorstin was awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasure, First Class, by the Japanese government in 1986.

Books

• The Mysterious Science of the Law (1941)
• The Lost World of Thomas Jefferson (1948)
• The Genius of American Politics (1953)
• The Americans: The Colonial Experience (1958)
• America and the Image of Europe: Reflections on American Thought (1960)
• A Lady's Life In The Rocky Mountains: Introduction (1960)
• The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-events in America (1962)
• The Americans: The National Experience (1965)
• The Landmark History of the American People: From Plymouth to Appomattox (1968)
• The Decline of Radicalism: Reflections of America Today (1969)
• The Landmark History of the American People: From Appomattox to the Moon (1970)
• The Sociology of the Absurd: Or, the Application of Professor X (1970)
• The Americans: The Democratic Experience (1973)
• Democracy and Its Discontents: Reflections on Everyday America (1974)
• The Exploring Spirit: America and the World, Then and Now (1976)
• The Republic of Technology (1978)
• The History of the United States with Brooks M. Kelley and Ruth Frankel (1981)
• The Discoverers (1983)
• Hidden History (1987)
• The Creators (1992)
• Cleopatra's Nose: Essays on the Unexpected (1994)
• The Seekers (1998)

References

• John Y. Cole (30 March 2006). "Jefferson's Legacy: A Brief History of the Library of Congress -- Librarians of Congress". Library of Congress. http://www.loc.gov/loc/legacy/librs.html. Retrieved 2008-12-15. 
• King, Wayne and Warren Weaver Jr. "Briefing: Boorstin and the Emperor", New York Times, May 2, 1986.

External links

• United States Library of Congress official site
• Center for the Book
• Daniel Boorstin papers collection
• Obituary in The Guardian
• Robert D. McFadden, "Daniel Boorstin, 89, Former Librarian of Congress Who Won Pulitzer in History, Dies", New York Times, March 1, 2004
• Linda D. Wilson, "Boorstin, Daniel J. (1914-2004)" at Oklahoma Historical Society Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture (retrieved March 11, 2009).
• Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture - Boorstin, Daniel J.
• Booknotes interview with Boorstin on Creators, December 6, 1992.

Persondata
Name	Boorstin, Daniel J.
Alternative names
Short description	Historian, professor, attorney, writer
Date of birth	1914-10-01
Place of birth	Atlanta, Georgia
Date of death	2004-02-28
Place of death	Washington, D.C.