The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law has announced a landmark appointment: historian and best-selling author Julian E. Zelizer will serve as its inaugural Scholar in Residence. Zelizer, who holds the Malcolm Stevenson Forbes Class of 1941 Professorship in History and Public Affairs at Princeton University, brings a prolific publishing record and a reputation as a public intellectual to the Center’s Fellows Program.
Rendezvous with Democracy: a new narrative for 1945-1974
In his first project for the Brennan Center, Zelizer is drafting Rendezvous with Democracy: America, 1945–1974 slated for release by HarperCollins. The manuscript will trace how Americans re-imagined the idea of democracy in the thirty-year span between the end of World War II and President Nixon’s resignation. By weaving together grassroots activism, civil-rights struggles, and shifts in political institutions, the book argues that the post-war era produced a broader, more inclusive conception of citizenship and accountability.
Central to Zelizer’s analysis are the upheavals of the 1960s, the expansion of voting rights, and the growing demand for governmental transparency. He contends that these forces created a “democratic renaissance” that was later challenged by the Watergate scandal, setting the stage for contemporary debates over voting access and partisan polarization.
Recent titles and media engagements
February saw the publication of Zelizer’s latest work, Rumble on the Promenade: The Clash of Justice and Power at the 1964 Democratic Convention released by W.W. Norton. The book spotlights the showdown during Freedom Summer between the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and President Lyndon Johnson, illuminating how questions of citizenship and democratic legitimacy played out on a national stage.
Beyond his monographs, Zelizer contributes a regular column to Foreign Policy appears frequently on NPR’s Here and Now and curates the Substack newsletter The Long View. In 2020, the Brennan Center hosted him for a public conversation about his biography Burning Down the House which examined Newt Gingrich’s rise and the transformation of the Republican Party.
Implications for the Brennan Center and public discourse
During a May episode of the Center’s podcast The Briefing with Michael Waldman Zelizer discussed today’s hyper-partisan climate and the surge of attacks on voting rights. His insights helped frame the Center’s ongoing research agenda, which seeks policy solutions to protect electoral integrity.
Michael Waldman, president and CEO of the Brennan Center, praised the appointment: “We are grateful to have Julian Zelizer help us understand the current state of American democracy and how we got here. He is one of the country’s leading historians and public intellectuals, with an abiding passion for our democracy.” Waldman added that Zelizer’s deep knowledge of democratic institutions will sharpen the Center’s analysis of governmental challenges and inform its advocacy work.
By channeling his research on mid-century democratic evolution into public-policy debates, the Center hopes to illuminate pathways for revitalizing American democracy in the twenty-first century.
