Norman Birnbaum

Norman Birnbaum
Official portrait from the Georgetown University Law Center
Born	(1926-07-21)July 21, 1926
Died	January 4, 2019(2019-01-04) (aged 92)
Alma mater	Williams College Harvard University Graduate School Nuffield College Oxford (fellow)

Norman Birnbaum (July 21, 1926 – January 4, 2019) was an American sociologist. He was an emeritus professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, and a member of the editorial board of The Nation. In 2017 he received Germany's highest award, the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit.

Early life

He was educated in New York City's public schools, at Williams College, and earned a doctorate in sociology from Harvard University. He taught at the London School of Economics and Political Science, Oxford University, the University of Strasbourg, Amherst College, served on the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research and was Distinguished Fulbright Professor at the University of Bologna.

Birnbaum's pedagogical work included the introduction of sociology to the undergraduate curricula at Amherst and Oxford. A founding member of the editorial board of New Left Review, was active in politics on both sides of the Atlantic He had been an advisor to American trade unions and members of Congress, as well as to a number of social movements and political parties in Europe. He contributed regularly to a number of publications, including openDemocracy, El País in Spain, and the German daily Die Tageszeitung. He published his memoir, From the Bronx to Oxford and Not Quite Back, in 2018.

Bibliography

Books

• Norman Birnbaum: From the Bronx to Oxford and Not Quite Back (memoir), 2019
• After Progress: American Social Reform and European Socialism in the Twentieth Century, 2001.
• Searching for the Light: Essays on Thought and Culture, 1993.
• The Radical Renewal: The Politics of Ideas in Modern America, 1988.
• Social Structure and The German Reformation, 1980.
• (Edited) Beyond The Crisis, 1976.
• Toward a Critical Sociology, 1971.
• (With Gertrud Lenzer), Sociology and Religion, 1969.
• The Crisis of Industrialized Society, 1969.

Selected op-eds

• Birnbaum, Norman (June 28, 2007). "'Did the Revolution have to fail?' : an exchange". The New York Review of Books. 54 (11): 71, 74.
• "What class consciousness means in US," The Financial Times, June 5, 2002.
• "US spin doctor," The Independent, March 21, 2002.
• "Americans able to think for themselves," The Financial Times, October 16, 2001.
• "Dynasties in competition," The Financial Times, January 24, 2001.
• "Adviser's post carries not a lot of power," The Financial Times, March 4, 2000.
• "Critics Assured Place in History," The Financial Times, October 5, 1999.
• "Jewish Minority Doesn't Speak for All," in national newspaper syndication, July 18, 1999.
• "Terrorism Panel No Place for Anti-Arab Bias," in national newspaper syndication, July 18, 1999.
• "Why Not a Muslim on Anti-Terrorism Commission?" in national newspaper syndication, July 14, 1999.
• "Rather More Critical View of Kenneth Starr," Financial Times, April 7, 1998.
• "Absent from the persecutory chorus," Financial Times, September 15, 1998.

External links

• The Nation profile
• Memoir, From the Bronx to Oxford and Not Quite Back
• Dissent review of his memoir
• Contributions to The New York Review of Books