History as Social Criticism: Conversations with Christopher Lasch

Abstract

As a historian, social critic, and moralist, Christopher Lasch was a powerful presence in American intellectual life. At a time when many historians complained about overspecialization of their discipline and sought opportunities address wider audiences, Lasch brought a historical imagination bear on public controversies about contemporary culture and politics while shaping scholarly debates in American history. In two interviews in July 1993, Lasch reflected on contours of his life's work as a historian and public intellectual and on his relation American progressivism the tradition that most American historians come out of, as he described it. Lasch discussed formative influence of midwestern progressivism he inherited from his parents -the newspaper editor Robert Lasch and social worker and philosopher Zora Schaupp Lasch -and political evolution that led him from liberal realism Marxism and, finally, an indigenous tradition of American social criticism. Throughout his remarks, Lasch returned relationship between historical writing and other literary genres -journalism, fiction, poetry, and criticism -and spoke of his own aspiration to write in such a way that somebody would hear it, so that it might have some influence, however small, on course of events that otherwise just seemed inexorably unfold. The particular context of these interviews and procedures used in editing them require some explanation. At end of spring 1993 semester, Lasch began a leave of absence from history department at University of Rochester in order undergo treatment for cancer. Lasch's illness was occasion for a visit by Casey Blake, Lasch's former student, and (at that time) associate editor of Journal ofAmerican History. Blake interviewed Lasch in his home in Pittsford, New York, onJuly 18. Christopher Phelps, a graduate student in history at University of Rochester, had independently arranged interview Lasch in his home on July 23. Once that interview was completed, Phelps and Blake decided combine their