Lewis J. Edinger, emeritus Professor of Political Science, died on May 19, 2008, after a short illness, at the age of 86, in St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital, located in Manhattan.
Edinger, best known for his work on political leaders and elites and on the politics of Western Europe, post-World War II, taught at Columbia University from 1967 until his retirement in 1992.
Edinger was born in 1922 in Frankfurt/Main (Germany). After Hitler came to power, his mother recognized the danger and emigrated with Lewis to the United States when he was 14 years old. His father chose to remain in Germany and was eventually deported and killed.
Edinger started college at City College in New York, but transferred to Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana, when he was offered a full scholarship and graduated in 1943. After graduation, he joined the U.S. Army Air Force and served in the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, a research unit that applied social science theory and methods to assess the effects of strategic bombing on German morale. He served with distinction until 1945, and his contributions were recognized by the award of two battle stars. After the war, Edinger entered Columbia University, earning the Ph.D. in political science in 1951.
During the course of a long teaching career, Edinger taught at New York University, Sweet Briar College, Vassar College, the University of North Carolina, the Air War College, the Free University of Berlin, Yale University, the University of Bonn, Rutgers University, Nuffield College of Oxford University, and the University of Florence. His major service was at Michigan State University (1957-1963), Washington University in St. Louis (1963-1967), and at his alma mater, Columbia (1967-1992).
At Columbia he was a beloved teacher and colleague associated not only with the Department of Political Science but also with the Institute on Western Europe, the Bureau of Applied Social Research, and the Brookdale Institute on Aging and Human Development.
Admired for his research on political leaders and elites and on the politics of Western Europe, Edinger won numerous scholarly awards and fellowships. These included a Ford Foundation Fellowship in 1956-1957; Social Science Research Council awards in 1958, 1959-1960, and 1962-1963; Fulbright Scholarships in 1959-1960,1964-1965, and 1980-1981; a National Science Foundation Award 1971-1973; a Guggenheim Fellowship 1973-1974; and a fellowship from the Japan Foundation in 1982.
Edinger’s most influential work was perhaps Kurt Schumacher: A Study in Personality and Political Behavior, about the leader of the Social Democratic Party and of the loyal opposition to Konrad Adenauer, the first Chancellor of Germany after World War II, published by Stanford University Press in 1965 and issued in a German edition in 1967. This study of Schumacher in West Germany contributed to a stream of political science research and theory that explored the influences of leaders’ personalities on politics.
He further contributed to the study of leadership and elites in his role as editor and co-author of Political Leadership in Industrialized Societies (1967), as editor of Theory and Method in Comparative Elite Analysis (1969), and in numerous articles, both technical and substantive, on the analysis of political elites.
Edinger was a prolific scholar and wrote major monographs and textbooks on German politics, including Politics in Germany (1968), Politics in West Germany (1977), West German Politics (1986), and From Bonn to Berlin: German Politics in Transition (with Brigitte Nacos, 1998). He was co-author of an influential comparative politics textbook, Comparative Politics Today (many editions) and an influential international politics textbook, Foreign Policy in World Politics (many editions). Among still other publications, some of the most noteworthy were German Exile Politics (1956), Germany Rejoins the Powers (1959), and France, Germany, and the Western Alliance (1967).
Juan J. Linz, Sterling Professor Emeritus of Political and Social Science Development at Yale University, remarked that “Lew was a distinguished scholar whose work on leadership has been pathbreaking. His biography of the German social democratic leader Schumacher showed how leadership plays a role in shaping politics. His textbook on the politics of Germany is the classic work in the field.”
Ira Katznelson, Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History at Columbia University, described Edinger as "a pioneer in introducing the study of political behavior into the center of comparative political studies.” Katznelson said that “in incisive studies of leadership and post-totalitarianism, Lewis Edinger never lost sight of the most pressing normative questions that long had animated the best work in the profession. His rich body of work, primarily focused on Germany, also productively refused an artificial or stark division between domestic affairs and foreign policy. Throughout, the charged sensibilities of an émigré scholar animate both his questions and his quest for scientific, empirically-grounded answers."
Brigitte L.Nacos, who co-authored a book with Edinger observed that "while his generation’s foremost scholar and expert on post-World-War II German politics, Lewis Edinger was what one might call a Renaissance man in the social sciences whose interest, knowledge, teaching, and scholarship transcended disciplinary boundaries before the ascendancy of interdisciplinary studies. His work on Germany in particular was illuminated by his ability to draw on and synthesize the knowledge and approaches of different disciplines, such as political science, history, sociology, and communication.”
Professor Mark Kesselman, a colleague throughout Edinger’s career at Columbia, noted, "Lew was a modern-day Socrates: not only did he have a passionate commitment to get at root causes, but he did so Socratic-style by relentless questioning of received wisdom. He was great at posing questions and engaging in intense dialog that took nothing for granted but forced us to question certitudes. As a person, Lew was deeply committed to helping the students who worked with him. And he was a loving husband and father, and devoted boundless efforts to caring for his wife when she fell ill."
Andrew J. Nathan, Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science at Columbia, recalled Edinger’s kindness to graduate students and younger faculty members and his broad-ranging curiosity about every conceivable subject. Nathan said, “Lew loved to converse. Despite his prodigious publishing schedule, he always seemed to have time to take an interest in other people’s work no matter how far afield from his own. He was a model both in his willingness to give intellectually, and in his willingness to turn around and take the role of a student in asking questions about anything under the sun. When you were with him, time would fly as his interests and insights ranged widely. His quick, astute judgments brought a refreshing, sustaining mix of critique and affection to every topic.”
Lewis Edinger married Hanni Blumenfeld in 1950. She died in 1998. He is survived by his two daughters, Monica Edinger and Susan Edinger, and by his grandchildren Benjamin and Anna D’Avanzo.
A memorial service will take place at Columbia early during the coming fall semester.
