Jean Edward Smith

Jean Edward Smith
Born	(1932-10-13) October 13, 1932 Washington, D.C.
Education	Columbia University (Ph.D., 1964)
Alma mater	Princeton University (A.B., 1954)
Occupation	Biographer, academic
Notable work(s)	Biographies (among others) of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ulysses S. Grant

Jean Edward Smith (born October 13, 1932, Washington, D.C.) is a biographer and the John Marshall Professor of Political Science at Marshall University. He is also professor emeritus at the University of Toronto after having served as professor of political economy there for thirty-five years. Smith is also on the faculty of the Master of American History and Government program at Ashland University.

The winner of the 2008 Francis Parkman Prize and the 2002 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography Smith's been called "today’s foremost biographer of formidable figures in American history."

Education and military service

A graduate of McKinley High School in Washington, D.C., Smith received an A.B. from Princeton University in 1954. While attending Princeton, Smith was mentored under law professor and political scientist William M. Beaney. Professor Beaney's American Constitutional Law: Introductory Essays & Selected Cases, became a standard text and was widely used in university constitutional law classes for several years. Serving in the military from 1954–1961, he rose from the rank of Second Lieutenant to Captain (RA) US Army (Artillery). Smith served in West Berlin and Dachau, Germany. In 1964, he obtained a Ph.D. from the Department of Public Law and Government of Columbia University.

Career

Smith began his teaching career as assistant professor of government at Dartmouth College, a post he held from 1963 until 1965. He then became a professor of political economy at the University of Toronto in 1965 until his retirement in 1999. Professor Smith also served as visiting professor at several universities during his tenure at the University of Toronto and after his retirement including the Freie Universität in Berlin, Georgetown University, the University of Virginia’s Woodrow Wilson Department of Government and Foreign Affairs, and the University of California at San Diego.

Bibliography

Smith won the 2008 Francis Parkman Prize for FDR, his 2007 biography. He was the 2002 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography for Grant, his 2001 biography.

• Eisenhower in War and Peace, New York: Random House, 2012 (ISBN 9781400066933).
• FDR, New York: Random House, 2007 (ISBN 9781400061211).
• Grant, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001 (ISBN 0684849267).
• The Face of Justice: Portraits of John Marshall (with William H. Gerdts, Wendell D. Garrett, Frederick S. Voss, and David B. Dearinger), Huntington, West Virginia: Huntington Museum of Art, 2001 (ISBN 0965388816).
• John Marshall: Definer of a Nation, New York: Henry, Holt & Company, 1996 (ISBN 080501389X).
• George Bush's War, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1992 (ISBN 0805013881).
• Lucius D. Clay: An American Life, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1990 (ISBN 080500999X).
• The Constitution and American Foreign Policy
• Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Debated (with Herbert Levine) 1988 (ISBN 013134966X).
• The Conduct of American Foreign Policy Debated (with Herbert Levine)
• The Evolution of NATO with Four Plausible Threat Scenarios (with Steven L. Canby), Ottawa, Canada: Canada Department of National Defence, 1987.
• The Papers of Lucius D. Clay (ed.)
• Germany Beyond the Wall: People, Politics, and Prosperity
• The Wall as Watershed, Arlington, Virginia: Institute for Defence Analyses, 1966.
• Der Weg ins Delemma, 1965.
• The Defence of Berlin, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1963 (LCCN 63-17670).

External links

• Ashland University Department of History and Government
• University of Cincinnati College of Law, 2000 John H. Burlingame Distinguished Lecture (dead link)
• Booknotes interview with Smith on Lucius D. Clay: An American Life, November 18, 1990.