Miroff, Bruce 1945-

PERSONAL:

Born February 3, 1945. Education: University of California, Berkeley, Ph.D., 1974.

ADDRESSES:

Office—University at Albany, State University of New York, 1400 Washington Ave., Albany, NY 12222. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Political scientist, educator, writer, and editor. Rockefeller College of Public Affairs & Policy, University at Albany, State University of New York, professor in the department of political science.

WRITINGS:

Pragmatic Illusions: The Presidential Politics of John F. Kennedy, McKay (New York, NY), 1976.

Icons of Democracy: American Leaders as Heroes, Aristocrats, Dissenters, and Democrats, Basic Books (New York, NY), 1993, new edition, University Press of Kansas (Lawrence, KS), 2000.

(With Ray Seidelman and Todd Swanstrom) The Democratic Debate: An Introduction to American Politics, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1995, 4th edition, 2007.

(Editor, with Ray Seidelman and Todd Swanstrom) Debating Democracy: A Reader in American Politics, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1997, 6th edition, 2008.

The Liberals' Moment: The McGovern Insurgency and the Identity Crisis of the Democratic Party, University Press of Kansas (Lawrence, KS), 2007.

Contributor to periodicals, including Rhetoric and Public Affairs and Presidential Studies Quarterly.

SIDELIGHTS:

Bruce Miroff is a political scientist whose academic and teaching interests include the presidency, political leadership, American political theory, and American political development. Miroff's book Icons of Democracy: American Leaders as Heroes, Aristocrats, Dissenters, and Democrats was first published in 1993, with a new edition published in 2000. In his book, the author ruminates on what he perceives to be a growing pettiness in political leadership and offers a look at how nine American leaders, whom he sees as U.S. political icons, have either successfully encouraged or undermined citizens' participatory roles in their democracy. In the process, Miroff discusses what leadership has meant in the past and how it can reinvigorate public life today. The leaders he discussed as fostering democratic participation are John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Eugene V. Debs, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King, Jr. The author heaps the most praise on Debs. A socialist and activist who was one of the founders of the International Labor Union and a five-time Socialist Party of America candidate for president, Debs, according to the author, articulated the grandest vision of American democratic ideals even though he failed to engage in the political battles necessary to achieve his vision. On the other hand, Miroff presents analyses of Alexander Hamilton, Theodore Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy as leaders who, in the end, actually discouraged a truly participatory democracy. In the new preface to the second edition of the book, the author also chastises Bill Clinton, calling him a leader more concerned with political fashion than democratic vision.

A Publishers Weekly contributor called Icons of Democracy "a provocative meditation on the commitments and deceptions of leadership in the U.S." Writing in Foreign Affairs, Stephen E. Ambrose noted that the author "comes down solidly on the side of democratic leadership … versus aristocratic, heroic or elitist" approaches.

In his 2007 book The Liberals' Moment: The McGovern Insurgency and the Identity Crisis of the Democratic Party, the author traces the transformation of American liberalism and sixties' idealism from its political crash with the catastrophic failure of the George McGovern campaign for the U.S. Presidency in 1972 to the uninspiring centralism that serves as the liberal movement in America in the twenty-first century.

The Liberals' Moment primarily delves into why McGovern lost the 1972 presidential election to incumbent President Richard Nixon, giving Nixon the biggest landslide victory ever in a U.S. presidential election. "The plan, Miroff shows, was to rely on McGovern's shimmering idealism, his incorruptibility, his utter straightforwardness—not to mention his early and morally uncompromising antiwar stance—to draw brand-new strands into the Democratic coalition: the under-21 voters newly enfranchised by the 26th Amendment, the new social movements, the conscience-stricken idealists of a baffled nation," wrote Rick Perlstein in the Democracy Journal.

Miroff reveals why the plan failed due to not only an ill-conceived campaign but also due to opportunists within McGovern's own Democratic Party who ended up providing little true support for McGovern as they looked out for their own political futures and goals. "The selfless New Politics movement, as he sees it, was betrayed by old-line centrists such as George Meany and Hubert Humphrey, who refused to acknowledge McGovern's superior virtue," wrote Fred Siegel in the Weekly Standard.

Miroff also goes into detail about one of the most damaging events in the campaign, namely the discovery that McGovern's vice presidential candidate, Thomas Eagleton, had a long history of psychiatric care and had gone under electroshock therapy. According to the author, McGovern took a stand of moral decency as one of his greatest attributes for becoming president. His subsequent decision to drop Eagleton as his vice presidential candidate hurt this reputation significantly, even though McGovern had little choice because the electorate was unlikely to vote for any presidential ticket that had either one of the candidates suspected of mental instability.

In the process of examining the doomed McGovern campaign, the author discusses both how the McGovern insurgency and campaign has had a long-term negative impact on the democratic party and what the campaign can teach modern liberal thinkers. Miroff also identifies what the author believes Democrats should do to reassume the mantle of progressive change. "Today's Democrats can't will the old politics back into dominance," wrote Timothy Noah in the New York Times Book Review. "Their challenge is to expand their base or make better use of the one they've got. Shadow-boxing an imaginary foe called ‘McGovernism’ is not only futile, but also, Miroff's book makes clear, a disservice to McGovern."

Several critics had high praise for The Liberals' Moment. A Publishers Weekly contributor called the book "well sourced … and well written." Writing on the BuzzFlash Web site, a reviewer noted that "it's a well-researched recount of both a shining point in the integrity of the Democratic Party, and the beginning of much of its loss of a cohesive identity."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, June, 1994, Robert B. Westbrook, review of Icons of Democracy: American Leaders as Heroes, Aristocrats, Dissenters, and Democrats, p. 965.

American History Illustrated, November-December, 1993, review of Icons of Democracy, p. 22.

Booklist, February 1, 1993, Joe Collins, review of Icons of Democracy, p. 969.

Choice, September, 1993, M.J. Birkner, review of Icons of Democracy, p. 206; February, 2008, M.E. Bailey, review of The Liberals' Moment: The McGovern Insurgency and the Identity Crisis of the Democratic Party, p. 1054.

Democracy Journal, winter, 2008, Rick Perlstein, "The Myths of McGovern," review of The Liberals' Moment.

Foreign Affairs, January, 1993, review of Icons of Democracy, p. 200; summer, 1993, Stephen E. Ambrose, review of Icons of Democracy, p. 200.

Journal of American History, March, 1994, Thomas C. Reeves, review of Icons of Democracy, p. 1421.

Journal of Interdisciplinary History, spring, 1995, review of Icons of Democracy, p. 750.

Journal of Politics, August, 1994, Ryan J. Barilleaux, review of Icons of Democracy, p. 836.

Library Journal, February 1, 1993, Karl Helicher, review of Icons of Democracy, p. 99.

New York Times, February 19, 1993, Michiko Kakutani, review of Icons of Democracy, p. 28.

New York Times Book Review, November 11, 2007, Timothy Noah, "Government Redux," review of The Liberals' Moment.

Prairie Schooner, winter, 1994, review of Icons of Democracy, p. 895.

Publishers Weekly, January 25, 1993, review of Icons of Democracy, p. 67; May 28, 2007, review of The Liberals' Moment, p. 47.

Reference & Research Book News, March, 1994, review of Icons of Democracy, p. 12; August, 2002, review of The Democratic Debate: An Introduction to American Politics, p. 134.

Weekly Standard, January 28, 2008, Fred Siegel, "Come Home, America; the Siren Song of Contemporary Liberalism."

ONLINE

BuzzFlash,http://www.buzzflash.com/ (June 12, 2008), review of The Liberals' Moment.

Houghton Mifflin,http://college.hmco.com/ (May 29, 2008), brief profile of author.

Rockefeller College of Public Affairs & Policy, Department of Political Science, University at Albany SUNY Web site,http://www.albany.edu/rockefeller/pos/ (May 29, 2008), faculty profile of author.