Marilyn B. Young (April 25, 1937 – February 19, 2017) was a historian of
American foreign relations
The United States has formal diplomatic relations with most nations. This includes all United Nations members and observer states other than Bhutan, Iran, North Korea and Syria, and the UN observer Territory of Palestine. Additionally, the U ...
and professor of history at
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...
.
She graduated from
Samuel J. Tilden High School
Samuel J. Tilden High School was a List of high schools in New York City, New York City public high school in the East Flatbush, Brooklyn, East Flatbush section of Brooklyn, New York City. It was named for Samuel J. Tilden, the former govern ...
in Brooklyn in 1953 and
Vassar College
Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States. The college be ...
in 1957.
Her doctoral work at Harvard University was supported by an anonymous full scholarship to learn Chinese and to pursue research in the field of United States relations with East Asia. She did her doctoral work under the direction of
Ernest R. May, a scholar of American foreign relations, and
John King Fairbank
John King Fairbank (May 24, 1907September 14, 1991) was an American historian of China and United States–China relations. He taught at Harvard University from 1936 until his retirement in 1977. He is credited with building the field of China ...
, an historian of China. Her doctoral dissertation became her first book, ''The Rhetoric of Empire: American China Policy, 1895–1901'', which examined the American
Open Door Notes and the international diplomacy of the
Boxer Uprising
The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, was an anti-foreign, anti-imperialist, and anti-Christian uprising in North China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty, by the Society of Righteous and Harmonious ...
. She taught at
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Michigan is one of th ...
, before moving to NYU in 1980.
[Faculty Profile New York University Department of History](_blank)
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In 2000–01 she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...
and an American Council of Learned Societies
The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) is a private, nonprofit federation of 75 scholarly organizations in the humanities and related social sciences founded in 1919. It is best known for its fellowship competitions which provide a ra ...
Fellowship, and the Berkshire Women's History Prize for ''The Vietnam Wars, 1945–1990''. She was elected President of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations
The Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR) was founded in 1967 in order to "promote excellence in research and teaching of American foreign relations history and to facilitate professional collaboration among scholars and s ...
in 2011.
Scholarly and political career
In the late 1960s, as part of her opposition to the American war in Vietnam, she was a founding member of the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars
The Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars (CCAS) was founded in 1968 by a group of graduate students and younger faculty as part of the Opposition to the Vietnam War, opposition to the American participation in the Vietnam War. They proposed a "rad ...
. Many of her subsequent writings concerned this and following American wars. She recalled in her presidential address to the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations
The Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR) was founded in 1967 in order to "promote excellence in research and teaching of American foreign relations history and to facilitate professional collaboration among scholars and s ...
:
Of the Iraq War
The Iraq War (), also referred to as the Second Gulf War, was a prolonged conflict in Iraq lasting from 2003 to 2011. It began with 2003 invasion of Iraq, the invasion by a Multi-National Force – Iraq, United States-led coalition, which ...
, she wrote: "If Vietnam was Korea in slow motion, then Operation Iraqi Freedom
The Iraq War (), also referred to as the Second Gulf War, was a prolonged conflict in Iraq lasting from 2003 to 2011. It began with the invasion by a United States-led coalition, which resulted in the overthrow of the Ba'athist governm ...
is Vietnam on crack cocaine. In less than two weeks a 30-year-old vocabulary is back: credibility gap, seek and destroy, hard to tell friend from foe, civilian interference in military affairs, the dominance of domestic politics, winning, or more often, losing hearts and minds."[quoted a]
Bill Moyers Journal (PBS) May 11, 2007
from Historians Reflect on the War in Iraq: A Roundtable (Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting, Memphis Tennessee, 2003).
Young joined the faculty at NYU in 1980. Young founded the Women Studies Department at NYU and, from 1993 to 1996, she was the chairwoman of its history department. Young was a co-director of the Tamiment Library's Center for the United States and the Cold War. She became president of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations in 2011.
While in graduate school she met and married Ernest P. Young, an historian of China described by a friend as her "early intellectual companion." They separated and then divorced in 1986.
Selected publications
For a fuller list, see Rebecca Karl, "In Memoriam."
Books
*
The Vietnam Wars, 1945–1990
'. (Harper Collins 1991), .
* with William G. Rosenberg,
Transforming Russia and China: Revolutionary Struggle in the Twentieth Century
' (Oxford University Press, 1982), .
* ''Women in China: Studies in Social Change and Feminism''. (Center for Chinese Studies, 1973), .
* ''The Rhetoric of Empire: America China Policy, 1895–1901.'' (Harvard University Press, 1968), .
Edited books
* with Y. Tanaka, ''Bombing Civilians: a 20th century history'', (The New Press, 2009).
* with Mark Bradley
Mark Anthony Bradley (born January 29, 1982) is an American former professional football wide receiver and punt returner who played five seasons in the National Football League (NFL). He was selected by the Chicago Bears in the second round of ...
, ''Making Sense of the Vietnam War'', (Oxford University Press, 2008).
* with Lloyd Gardner, ''Iraq and the Lessons of Vietnam'', The New Press, 2007.
* with Lloyd Gardner, ''The New American Empire'', The New Press, 2005.
* with Tom Grunfeld and John Fitzgerald, ''The Vietnam War: A History in Documents'', OUP, 2003.
* with Robert Buzzanco, ''Companion to the Vietnam War'', Blackwell, 2002.
* edited with Lynn Hunt
Lynn Avery Hunt (born November 16, 1945) is the Eugen Weber Professor of Modern European History at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her area of expertise is the French Revolution, but she is also well known for her work in European ...
and Jeffrey Wasserstrom, ''Human Rights and Revolutions'', (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000),
**2nd edition (2007) with same editors and Greg Grandin
Greg Grandin (born 1962) is an American historian and author. He is a professor of history at Yale University. He previously taught at New York University.
He is author of several books, including '' Fordlândia: The Rise and Fall of Henry For ...
,
* Editorial Committee, ''Reporting Vietnam:American Journalism, 1959–1975'', two volumes, Library of America
The Library of America (LOA) is a nonprofit publisher of classic American literature. Founded in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation, the LOA has published more than 300 volumes by authors ...
, 1998.
* with Marvin Gettleman
Marvin E. Gettleman (September 12, 1933 – January 7, 2017), was an American professor emeritus of leftist history, best known for the anthology Vietnam and America' (1965).
Background
Gettleman was born on September 12, 1933, in New York Ci ...
, Jane Franklin
Jane, Lady Franklin (née Griffin; 4 December 1791 – 18 July 1875) was a British explorer, seasoned traveller and the second wife of the English explorer Sir John Franklin. During her husband's period as Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's L ...
and Bruce Franklin, ''Vietnam and America'', Grove Press, 1985; rev. edition Anchor Books, 1995.
* with Rayna Rapp and Sonia Kruks, ''Promissory Notes: Women and the Transition to Socialism'', Monthly Review Press
The ''Monthly Review'' is an independent Socialism, socialist magazine published monthly in New York City. Established in 1949, the publication is the longest continuously published socialist magazine in the United States.
History Establishment ...
, 1983.
* ''American Expansionism: the Critical Issues, Little Brown'', 1973, edited collection
Articles
* "The Korean War: Ambivalence on the Silver Screen," in ''The Korean War at Fifty: International Perspectives'', edited by Mark F. Wilkinson (John Adams Center for Military History and Strategic Analysis, 2004).
* "In the Combat Zone," reprinted in ''Hollywood and War: The Film Reader'', edited by J. David Slocum (NY/London; Routledge, 2006).
* "Two, Three, Many Vietnams," ''Cold War Studies'', November 2006.
* "The Vietnam Laugh Track," in David Ryan, ed. ''Iraq in Vietnam'' (London: Routledge, 2006)
* "’Shared Victory,’ Korea, the U.S. and France," in ''The First Vietnam War: Colonial Conflict and Cold War Crisis'', ed. Mark Atwood Lawrence and Fredrik Logevall
Fredrik Logevall is a Swedish-American historian and educator at Harvard University, where he is the Laurence D. Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and professor of history in the Harvard Facult ...
. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006).
* "The American Empire at War," in ''The Barbarization of Warfare'', edited by George Kassimeris (London: Routledge/NY: NYU Press, 2006).
* "Counterinsurgency, Now and Forever," in Gardner Gardner may refer to:
People and fictional characters
*Gardner (given name)
*Gardner (surname)
Places United States
* Gardner, Colorado
*Gardner, Illinois
*Gardner, Kansas
*Gardner, Massachusetts
* Gardner, North Dakota
* Gardner, Tennessee
* Ga ...
and Young, ''Iraq and the Lessons of Vietnam''
* "Why Vietnam Still Matters," in ''The War That Never Ends'', edited by John Ernst and David Anderson (University Press of Kentucky), 2007.
Notes
References and further reading
*
*
*
External links
Marilyn Blatt Young WorldCat Identity
Marilyn Young Papers
at Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives at New York University
{{DEFAULTSORT:Young, Marilyn B.
1937 births
2017 deaths
20th-century American historians
American women historians
University of Michigan faculty
New York University faculty
Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni
Samuel J. Tilden High School alumni
Vassar College alumni
American anti-war activists
20th-century American women writers
Historians from New York (state)
People from Flatbush, Brooklyn
21st-century American women
Presidents of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations