Lawrence S. Wittner

From Philosopedia

Lawrence S. Wittner (5 May 1941 - )

Wittner was born in Brooklyn, the son of Jacob and Rose (Barnett) Wittner). After receiving his A.B. from Columbia College in 1962, he received his M.A. from the University of Wisconsin in 1963 and his Ph. D. from Columbia University in 1967.

His first marriage to Patricia Ellen Sheinblatt ended in divorce in 1981, and they had one child, Julia. In 1999, he married Dorothy Tristman.

Subsequently, he taught at Hampton Institute at Vassar College, and - under the Fulbright program - at Japanese universities. In 1974, he began teaching at the State University of New York/Albany, where he is currently professor of history.

Wittner is the author of seven books, the editor or co-editor of another four, and the author of about 200 articles and book reviews. From 1984 to 1987, he edited Peace & Change a journal of peace research. His article "Peace Movements and Foreign Policy" won the Charles DeBenedetti award of the Conference on Peace Research in History in 1989, and his One World or None: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement Through 1953 received the Warren Kuehl Book Prize of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations in 1995. In addition, he received the New York State/United University Professions Excellence Award for scholarship, teaching, and service in 1990.

A former president of the Council on Peace Research in History (now the Peace History Society), an affiliate of the American Historical Association, Wittner also chaired the Peace History Commission of the International Peace Research Association.

He has received major fellowships or grants from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Aspen Institute, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the United States Institute of Peace.

Wittner has spoken at the United Nations and at the Norwegian Nobel Institute, delivered guest lectures on dozens of college and university campuses (including Princeton University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Yale University, Rutgers University, the University of Colorado, the University of Wisconsin, American University, the University of Maine, the University of Utah, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of New Mexico, Swarthmore College, and Colgate University), and given talks in numerous countries (including Austria, Belgium, Britain, Canada, China, the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Japan, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, and Spain).

Blending intellectual life with political activity, Wittner has been active since 1961 in the racial equality, labor, and peace movements. He was an early civil rights and anti-apartheid activist and has served for decades as an elected leader of United University Professions (the SUNY faculty-staff union that is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers). He is currently a national board member of Peace Action, the largest peace organization in the United States. On occasion, he performs vocally and on the banjo with the Solidarity Singers, who enliven a variety of events—in prisons, on picket lines, and at meetings of the American Historical Association—with their music.

Wittner lives with his family in Albany, New York.

Select Publications

One World or None: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement Through 1953: Volume 1 of The Struggle Against the Bomb (Stanford University Press, 1993. Paperback edition, 1995)

Resisting the Bomb: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement, 1954-1970: Volume 2 of The Struggle Against the Bomb (Stanford University Press, 1997. Paperback edition, 1997)

Toward Nuclear Abolition: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement, 1971 to the Present: Volume 3 of The Struggle Against the Bomb (Stanford University Press, 2003. Paperback edition, 2003)

Confronting the Bomb: A Short History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement (Stanford University Press, 2009, paperback)