Winik, Jay 1957–

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Winik, Jay 1957–

PERSONAL:

Born February 8, 1957, in New Haven, CT; son of Herbert Edward Winik and Marilyn Joan Abrams; married Lyric Wallwork (a writer and columnist), November 17, 1991. Education: Yale University, B.A., 1980, Ph.D., 1993; London School of Economics, M.Sc., 1981. Hobbies and other interests: Tennis.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Chevy Chase, MD. Office—University of Maryland, School of Public Affairs, Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland, 4113 Van Munching Hall, College Park, MD 20742; fax: 301-403-8107. Agent—Carlisle & Company, 260 W. 39th St., New York, NY 10018. E-mail—jaywinik.erols.com.

CAREER:

Author, historian, political scientist, and educator. University of Maryland School of Public Affairs, senior fellow, 1991—, adjunct professor; Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland, senior scholar. RAND Corporation, arms control consultant, 1983; chief speechwriter to Russian Ambassador Benjamin Netanyahu, 1984; U.S. House Commission on Armed Services, senior staff member, 1985-88; Democratic National Convention 1986 policy commission, principal advisor for defense and foreign policy; select committee to investigate covert arms transactions with Iran, staff member, 1987; Center for Strategic and International Studies, visiting fellow, 1988; Defense Secretary's Commission on Base Realignment and Closure, deputy executive director, 1988; Office of Senator Charles S. Robb and Senate Commission on Foreign Relations, legislative assistant, 1989-91; advisor to U.S. Secretary of Defense, 1993. Political commentator for MSNBC and regular guest on The History Center, History Channel.

MEMBER:

Council on Foreign Relations, Commonwealth Club of California (honorary member).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Books to Remember selection, New York Public Library, 2001, and Walt Whitman Civil War Roundtable Award, 2002, both for April 1865: The Month That Saved America.

WRITINGS:

On the Brink: The Dramatic, Behind-the-scenes Saga of the Reagan Era and the Men and Women Who Won the Cold War, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1996.

April 1865: The Month That Saved America, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2001.

The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World, 1788-1800, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2007.

Contributor to periodicals, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Foreign Policy, Washington Quarterly, and Washingtonian.

ADAPTATIONS:

April 1865: The Month That Saved America was the basis of a television documentary for A&E and History Channel.

SIDELIGHTS:

Jay Winik is a prominent historian, political scientist, educator, and expert on war whose distinguished career spans more than twenty years of national and international politics, and whose opinions are still sought after by presidential administrations. Winik has frequently appeared on television as a commentator and consultant on such networks as MSNBC, CNN, C-Span, the History Channel, Fox News, NBC, and PBS.

Prior to the 2001 bombing campaign by the United States in Afghanistan, Vice President Dick Cheney invited Winik to dinner to discuss historical precedents and lessons to be learned for the George W. Bush White House's war on terrorism. Winik served as an advisor to former U.S. defense secretary Les Aspin, and he was deputy director of the first blue-ribbon base-closure commission in the country. He has served in senior policy positions in both bodies of Congress and in the executive branch of the United States. He has observed first-hand many civil wars throughout the world, and he helped create the United Nations plan for ending the Cambodian civil war.

On the Brink: The Dramatic, Behind-the-scenes Saga of the Reagan Era and the Men and Women Who Won the Cold War provides a comprehensive account of the end of the Cold War era. Winik "makes a passionate case for Ronald Reagan as the victor of the Cold War," remarked Peter W. Rodman in the Times Literary Supplement. "Overcoming the obstacles of a leftist Congress and media, Reagan increased political, economic, military, and moral pressures on the evil Soviet empire," Rodman continued. "Winik's is an uncritical presentation of this thesis, but the book's interest lies less in its sometimes breathless journalistic detail of the American scene than its correct perception of the remarkable and pivotal role played in all this by a group of ex-Democrats." These Democrats—Jeane Kirkpatrick, Max Kampelman, Elliot Abrams, and Richard Perle—"gave practical form to Reagan's own daring concept of seeking victory over Soviet communism, rather than mere containment and coexistence," noted Stephen S. Rosenfeld in the Washington Post. Perle "fought the Soviet arms buildup and promoted a vigorous nuclear-arms policy that ultimately bankrupted the Soviet government," commented Adrian Karatnycky in the Wall Street Journal. Kampelman "elevated human rights to the center stage of the diplomatic give-and-take" with the Soviets, Karatnycky wrote; Kirkpatrick "exposed Soviet mendacity and hypocrisy" in her role as U.N. ambassador; and Abrams served as "a central figure in the struggle against Soviet-backed insurgencies in Central America."

Winik's account is a neoconservative one, noted Robert A. Divine in Political Science Quarterly. "He makes no effort to disguise his sympathies, and the result is a one-sided account that makes a strong but not fully convincing case." Mark P. Lagon, writing in Perspectives on Political Science, observed that "no serious book had been written that made a convincing case that Reagan won the Cold War, how he did it, and with whom—until now." Karatnycky concluded: "Winik succeeds in telling an absorbing tale."

In April 1865: The Month That Saved America, Winik offers a detailed account of the last month of the U.S. Civil War, when disaster and destruction predominated but human dignity and character served more than bullets and artillery to bring a close to a devastating era of American history. In April 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated; the Confederate capital of Richmond fell and was evacuated; and the remaining two Confederate armies gave in, with Confederate general Robert E. Lee surrendering to Union general Ulysses S. Grant. Rather than degenerate into the protracted, crippling misery of ongoing guerilla warfare, which Confederate president Jefferson Davis encouraged, the remnants of the Confederate armies dissolved, and the seemingly infinite rift between the North and the South began to heal. Robert E. Lee faced the decision of whether to surrender or flee to the hills to continue the war from behind trees and rocks.

In his book Winik explores Lee's racking decision in great detail. In the end, the general knew the devastation a decision for anything other than peace would bring to his beloved country. "Lee could have opted for anarchy; Grant could have behaved less generously," New York Times Book Review critic Max Byrd noted. "But to their eternal credit, the two great soldiers chose peace. So, in Winik's words, ‘men were not hanged, they were saluted … they were not humiliated or beaten, they were embraced. Some of this was by design; much of it occurred totally spontaneously. All of it mattered.’"

"I was trying to write a narrative of what happened at the end of the war, but in such a way that I could explore why our civil war did not end with dire consequences, even though it easily could have," Winik explained in an interview with Donald A. Yerxa for Books & Culture. "And I wanted to place readers back into the closing weeks of the war to help them get a sense of the crucial decisions as they were being made, so that they could appreciate the tension and the drama that the participants themselves experienced."

April 1865 "provides a splendid combination of history, civics lesson, and biography, but Mr. Winik is also a marvelous storyteller," remarked Jeff Shaara in the Wall Street Journal. "Moving through that momentous month, the reader is carried with breathtaking sorrow through the death of Abraham Lincoln and its devastating effects," and the other signal events of the month, Shaara commented. Byrd called April 1865 "a marvelous book. It has its share of faults—the author sentimentalizes Lee, he underestimates Grant, he sometimes overstates, but these and all other objections are swept aside in the furiously dramatic rush of the narrative and the brilliant freshness of the argument." National Review critic Thomas Mallon noted that "Winik's style is lively to the point of exuberance," and a Publishers Weekly reviewer commented that "Winik's ability to see the big picture in the close-up (and vice versa), and to compose riveting narrative, is masterful."

In The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World, 1788-1800 Winik examines the birth of the American republic from a global perspective. He shows that the revolutionary fervor that blossomed in the foundational years of the United States did not occur in a vacuum, but influenced—and was influenced by—events throughout the world, especially in France and Russia. Indeed, America's revolution helped to inspire France's far bloodier one, and to cause Catherine the Great to crush aspiring revolts in Poland and among the Ottomans. As Winik remarked in an interview posted on his home page, "it is a myth that only the contemporary world, driven by email, air travel, cell phones, and BlackBerrys, is interconnected. In truth, the world of the 1790s was stitched together in ways that we can scarcely grasp, from Philadelphia to Paris to St. Petersburg and Constantinople. It is crucial to understand that the great nations of the day—America and France, but also the Russian and Islamic Ottoman Empires—and their leaders, were all intimately tied together and reacted to each other. This is how the modern world was formed."

Reviewers found The Great Upheaval lively, fascinating, and largely convincing. Historian Joseph Ellis, writing in New York Times Book Review, observed that Win- ik's argument is generally "solid," especially in his discussion of the interconnections between the American and French revolutions. But Ellis found "the Russian connection … somewhat strained," noting that Catherine's autocratic decisions were prompted more by fear of the violence in France than by events in the American republic. The critic further observed that Winik's gift for character portraits gives the book a dimension that "privileges the personal." What the book lacks, he wrote, "is the impersonal dimension, the geographic, demographic, socioeconomic differences between France and Russia on the one hand, and the United States on the other."

Deirdre Donahue, writing in USA Today, praised Winik's ability to make history feel real and immediate to modern readers by focusing on "the vivid, telling human details" of his narrative. Though a writer for Publishers Weekly felt that Winik "greatly underplayed the importance of Britain" in the revolutionary events on the era, the reviewer nevertheless hailed The Great Upheaval as "popular history of the highest order."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Heritage, April, 2001, review of April 1865: The Month That Saved America, p. 14.

American Prospect, August 27, 2001, Kim Phillips-Fein, review of April 1865, p. 41.

Army, April, 2002, Edward B. Atkeson, review of April 1865, p. 76.

Booklist, March 15, 1996, Gilbert Taylor, review of On the Brink: The Dramatic, Behind-the-scenes Saga of the Reagan Era and the Men and Women Who Won the Cold War, p. 1223; August 1, 2007, Jay Freeman, review of The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World, 1788-1800, p. 27.

Books & Culture, July-August, 2003, Donald Yerxa, "How the War Might Have Ended: A Conversation with Historian Jay Winik," p. 22.

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, October, 2001, review of April 1865, p. 377.

Christian Science Monitor, September 18, 2007, Randy Dotinga, review of The Great Upheaval.

Denver Post, September 28, 2007, Steve Weinberg, review of The Great Upheaval.

Detroit Free Press, September 9, 2001, review of April 1865, p. 5E.

Foreign Affairs, November 1, 2007, Walter Russell Mead, review of The Great Upheaval.

Foreign Policy, fall, 1996, John Steinbruner, review of On the Brink, p. 169.

Human Events, August 27, 2001, review of April 1865, p. 20.

Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 1996, review of On the Brink, p. 217; February 15, 2001, review of April 1865, p. 248; July 15, 2007, review of The Great Upheaval.

Library Journal, March 15, 1996, review of On the Brink, p. 86; April 1, 2001, Brooks D. Simpson, review of April 1865, p. 116; October 1, 2007, Bryan Craig, review of The Great Upheaval, p. 85.

Military Review, March-April, 2003, Richard L. Kiper, review of April 1865, p. 93.

National Review, November 11, 1996, review of On the Brink, p. 62; April 30, 2001, Thomas Mallon, "The Reunion"; September 12, 2007, John J. Miller, "An Historic Birth."

New York Times, April 25, 2001, Richard Bernstein, "The Month That Lincoln Was Shot," p. B9; September 15, 2007, John Steele Gordon, review of The Great Upheaval, p. B7.

New York Times Book Review, April 14, 1996, Elaine Sciolino, review of On the Brink, p. 31; April 22, 2001, Max Byrd, "The Month That Was," p. 25; April 14, 2002, review of April 1865, p. 24; September 30, 2007, Joseph Ellis, review of The Great Upheaval.

Orbis, winter, 1999, Mark T. Clark, review of On the Brink, p. 153.

Parameters, spring, 2002, review of April 1865, p. 121.

Perspectives on Political Science, summer, 1997, Mark P. Lagon, review of On the Brink, p. 170.

Political Science Quarterly, fall, 1997, Robert A. Divine, review of On the Brink, p. 519.

Prairie Schooner, fall, 1997, review of On the Brink, p. 519.

Presidential Studies Quarterly, spring, 1997, William C. Spragens, review of On the Brink, p. 368.

Publishers Weekly, January 29, 1996, review of On the Brink, p. 90; February 19, 2001, review of April 1865, p. 78; July 23, 2007, review of The Great Upheaval, p. 56.

Record (Bergen County, NJ), September 2, 2007, Carl Hartman, review of The Great Upheaval, p. 14.

Reference & Research Book News, August, 2001, review of April 1865, p. 56; May 1, 2008, review of The Great Upheaval.

SAIS Review, winter-spring, 1997, Bill S. Mikhail, review of On the Brink, p. 201.

Times Literary Supplement, July 12, 1996, Peter W. Rodman, "Against Isolationism," p. 27; March 14, 2008, Paul Johnson, review of The Great Upheaval, p. 10.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), July 1, 2001, review of April 1865, p. 1; July 28, 2002, review of April 1865, p. 6.

USA Today, September 10, 2007, Deirdre Donahue, review of The Great Upheaval.

Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, summer, 2001, E. Susan Barber, review of April 1865, p. 338.

Wall Street Journal, April 10, 1996, Adrian Karatnycky, "A Front-row Seat at Cold War's Final Phase," p. A15; April 2, 2001, Jeff Shaara, "Ending a War, Keeping the Peace," p. A20; September 14, 2007, David M. Shribman, review of The Great Upheaval.

Washington Post, April 12, 1996, Stephen S. Rosenfeld, "Who Killed Communism?," p. A25; April 13, 2003, Linda Wheeler, "Film Explores Decision to Surrender," review of television film of April 1865, p. T8.

Washington Post Book World, March 25, 2001, review of April 1865, p. 2.