From left: William C. Taubman, the Bertrand Snell Professor of Political Science,
shares a joke with Shannon Dobson ’06 and Emily Cole ’07. |
Prof. Taubman receives Pulitzer Prize
William C. Taubman, the Bertrand Snell Professor of Political
Science, in April received the 2004 Pulitzer Prize
for biography for Khrushchev: The Man and His Era (W.W. Norton, 2003). The award
will be presented at the end of May in a ceremony at Columbia University’s
Low Library.
“I worked on this book for 20 years,” Taubman told the Daily
Hampshire Gazette. “I didn’t spend 20 years imagining winning such a prize.
I thought of it once or twice, but banished the thought. And if I didn’t
my wife, Jane, did.”
President Anthony W. Marx noted Amherst’s pride in Taubman’s achievement
and said, “His great work came out of years of scholarship, and, in the
best Amherst tradition, it was informed by years of teaching.”
Khrushchev: The Man and His Era details the triumphs and tragedies of the Soviet
leader’s life while also telling the story of his country. Combining historical
narrative with political and psychological analysis, the book includes interviews
with members of the Khrushchev family, as well as friends and colleagues. It
also draws on Taubman’s research into previously unseen materials found
in newly opened archives in Russia and Ukraine. The book is the first comprehensive
biography of the Soviet Communist leader, and the first biography of any Soviet
leader to reflect the full range of sources that have become available since
the collapse of the U.S.S.R.
A member of the Amherst faculty since 1967, Taubman is an associate of the Davis
Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard, chair of the Advisory Committee
of the Cold War International History Project at the Wilson Center in Washington,
D.C., and a former International Affairs Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations
with the Department of State. His previous books include Moscow
Spring (co-authored
with his wife, Professor of Russian Jane Taubman), Stalin’s American
Policy, Governing Soviet Cities and The View from Lenin
Hills. He has contributed to
The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los
Angeles Times and many other
newspapers, magazines and journals. He holds degrees from Harvard and Columbia.
Lewis Spratlan, the Peter R. Pouncey Professor of Music, received the 2000 Pulitzer
Prize in music for Life Is a Dream, Opera in Three Acts:
Act II, Concert Version. Professor of Spanish James Maraniss wrote the libretto
for this work, an adaptation of Spanish playwright Calderon de la Barca’s
1636 masterpiece, La vida es sueño.
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Photo: Frank Ward
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