Robert Wilentz
Department/Program(s):History
Position: Professor
Title: Sidney and Ruth Lapidus Professor in the American Revolutionary Era. Professor of History.
Area(s): United States
Field: Early National and Jacksonian history; U.S. political history since 1945
Office: 134 Dickinson Hall
Phone: 609-258-4702
Email: swilentz@princeton.edu
Office Hours: M 2.30-4.30
Profile
Sean Wilentz studies U.S. social and political history. He received his Ph.D. in history from Yale University (1980) after earning bachelor’s degrees from Columbia University (1972) and Balliol College, Oxford University (1974). Chants Democratic (1984), which won several national prizes, including the Albert J. Beveridge Award of the American Historical Association, shows how the working class emerged in New York City and examines the changes in politics and political thought that came with it. It has recently been republished with a new preface in a 20th-anniversary edition. In The Kingdom of Matthias (1994), Wilentz and coauthor Paul Johnson tell the story of a bizarre religious cult that sprang up in New York City in the 1830s, exploring in the process the darker corners of the 19th-century religious revival known as the Second Great Awakening. Professor Wilentz is also the coauthor and coeditor of The Key of Liberty (1993) and the editor of several other books, including Major Problems in the Early Republic (1992) and The Rose and the Briar (2004, Greil Marcus coeditor), a collection of historical essays and artistic creations inspired by American ballads. His major work to date, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (2005), was awarded the Bancroft Prize and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His most recent book is The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008, a reconsideration of U.S. politics since the Watergate affair. A contributing editor to The New Republic and Newsweek, Professor Wilentz lectures frequently and has written some three hundred articles, reviews, and op-ed pieces for publications such as the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Review of Books, the London Review of Books, the American Scholar, The Nation, Le Monde, and Salon. He also writes about American music, for which he has received a Grammy nomination and a Deems Taylor-ASCAP award. In his spare writing time, he is historian-in-residence at Bob Dylan’s official website, www.bobdylan.com/
Current Project
Professor Wilentz is currently completing a book tentatively entitled, Bob Dylan in America, a historical and cultural interpretation of Dylan’s life and work.
Teaching Interests
Professor Wilentz teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses on U.S. history, focusing on the 19th century. He has also taught courses on American literature and 20th-century American culture and politics.
To learn more about Robert Wilentz, read featured interview
Recent Publications
1. The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008 (New York: HarperCollins, 2008).
2. The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (New York: W.W. Norton, 2005).
