Daniel J. Leab Professor of History Address: 334 Fahy Hall
Phone: (973) 761-6000, x5095
E-mail: leabdani@shu.edu
Having been Associate Dean of Columbia College during its troubles, subsequently in the University’s central administration, and on the Executive Committee of the University Senate as well as a productive member of Columbia’s History Dept. (I had published one book, and several articles in refereed journals), Seton Hall’s then Provost John Duff hired me to oversee the American Studies Program.
I did that for six years, then turned it over to successors who had less success. Other administrative chores at SHU include a stint as Acting Chairman of the History Dept., two years as Chairman of the University Rank and Tenure Committee, and creator and Director of the College’s Multi-Cultural Program which happily has flourished under my successors who built on the foundations I laid over six years.
Since coming to Seton Hall in 1975 I have written or edited seven books, had over 20 articles in refereed journals and many more in other kinds of publications such as festschrifts, undertook various kinds of journalism, served as an editor of three learned journals, won some awards, participated as a speaker in meetings in the U.S. and abroad, and enjoyed teaching students both in the History Dept. and the Honors Program.
I like learning from students and in all my courses chat with them before they take up their term paper assignments, conversations which I find instructive and believe they do as well. Researching, writing, teaching History has been for me a way of life, and a good one. There are all kinds of aphroisms about History. Voltaire thought it was “a pack of lies mutually agreed upon,” Henry Ford said it was “more or less bunk,” Truman Capote argued that “history teaches us…nothing.” I disagree with these arguments, and the many more about the failings of History as a discipline and as a guide. For me the best view is that of Maya Angelou:
History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, but if faced
With courage, need not be lived again..
Education
- Ph.D., Columbia University, 1969
- M.A., Columbia University, 1960
- B.A., Columbia University, 1957
Courses at Seton Hall
- HIST 1301 American History I
- HIST 1302 American History II
- HIST 3212 World War II
- HIST 2361 From Wilson to FDR
- HIST 2362 America in Depression and War
- HIST 2363 Recent America
- HIST 2388 Film and History (topics include the Cold War)
- HIST 2393 Topics (including the Spanish Civil War)
- HIST 3191 Supervised Research I
- HIST 3192 Supervised Research II
- HIST 3193 Supervised Research III
- HIST 3371 U.S. Diplomatic History II
- HIST 3389 Film and History (topics include the Great Depression)
- HIST 5199 Senior Seminar (topics include the Cold War)
Awards, grants and fellowships
- $300 Prize for best article by a senior scholar in the 2005 volume of the Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television
- John Commerford Prize of the New York State Labor History Association (1997)
- New Jersey Dept. of Higher Education: Co-Principal Investigator, $50,000 Grant
for the Implementation of a Pilot Multi-Media Core Course (1991-1992) - Seton Hall University Research Council Grant (1989- Summer)
- Fulbright Senior Lectureships, to University of Cologne (1986, 1977)
- NEH Fellowship (1980)
Representative Publications
Books:
Orwell Subverted: the CIA and the Filming of Animal Farm, Penn State University
Press, 2007
I Was A Communist for the FBI”: the Life and Unhappy Times of Matt Cvetic, Penn
State University Press, 2001
George Orwell: An Exhibition at the Grolier Club (Selections from the Daniel J. Leab
Collection), Cogswell Tavern Press, 1996
with Maurice Neufeld and Dorothy Swanson, American Working Class History: A
Bibliography, Bowker, 1983
with Katharine Kyes Leab, The Auction Companion, Harper & Row, 1981, the
Macmillan Company (UK), 1981
From Sambo to Superspade: The Black Experience in Motion Pictures, Houghton Mifflin
Company, 1975; Secker and Warburg, 1976
A Union of Individuals: the Formation of the American Newspaper Guild, Columbia
University Press, 1970
Edited Works:
Special issues of Film History, dealing with “Politics and Film” (16, #4, 2004), “Film and
Religion” (14, #2, 2002), “Moving Image Archives: Past and Future” (12, #2, 2000),
“The Cold War and the Movies” (10, #3, 1998)
with Philip Mason, A Guide to the Holdings of Archives, Historical Societies, and Other
Institutions in the Field of Working Class History, Wayne State University Press,
1992.
The Labor History Reader, University of Illinois Press, 1985
