Maurice Isserman

Maurice Isserman (born March 12, 1951) is James L. Ferguson Professor of History at Hamilton College and an important contributor to the "new history of American communism," which reinterpreted the role of the Communist Party USA during the Popular Front period of the 1930s and 1940s. His books have also traced the emergence of the New Left and the decade of the 1960s. He co-authored a biography of Dorothy Healey and wrote an award-winning biography of American socialist leader Michael Harrington. Recently he refocused his work on the history of mountaineering in the Himalayas and the United States. He has contributed editorials and book reviews to The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Newsday, the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, and The American Alpine Review.

Early life

Isserman was born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1951, into a family that would have significant influence on his political and intellectual future. His mother, born Flora Huffman, was the daughter and sister of Quaker ministers and graduated from a Quaker college. She was a social worker for the state of Connecticut. His father, Jacob (Jack) Isserman, was born in Antwerp and came with his family to the US in 1906 at age four, and was later naturalized as a US citizen. He was a machinist who worked at the Pratt and Whitney aircraft factory in East Hartford, Connecticut.