Maurice Isserman, Hamilton’s historian of the American left
The Hamilton history professor writes about the American left and mountaineering, and he has taught on the Hill since 1990.
By Hannah Mohr
Maurice Isserman has taught history at Hamilton College since 1990, when he took a tenure-track position there.
Most of his work is about the American left. His dissertation, a history of American communism during the Second World War, became his first book, “Which Side Were You On?” in 1982. He followed it with “If I Had a Hammer” (1987), on the roots of the New Left, and worked with Dorothy Healey on “Dorothy Healey Remembers” (1990). He also wrote a prize-winning biography of Michael Harrington, “The Other American.”
In 2008 he started writing about mountaineering. He has written for The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Newsday, the Los Angeles Times, The Nation and The American Alpine Review.
Isserman was born in Hartford, Conn., on March 12, 1951.