Marshall Howard Berman

Marshall Howard Berman ((November 24, 1940 – September 11, 2013) "an author, academic, philosopher and lyrical defender of modernism, Karl Marx and his native New York City, died on Wednesday in Manhattan. He was 72."

From THE SCROLL Marshall Berman, Marxist Humanist Mensch By Todd Gitlin. September 12, 2013 3:07 PM

"He died of an out-of-the-blue heart attack in one of his favorite schmoozing sites, the West Side’s Metro. Metro. He was a true metropolitan. All that was solid in his heart and mind refuses to melt into air."

From Marshall Berman, Marxist Mentsch, Dies at 72 By Ralph Seliger. September 13, 2013, 1:45pm

"Berman was one of Ric Burns’ talking heads in his documentary series “New York,” in which Berman spoke while literally laid back on a sofa — an amusing contrast to the starched upright posture of traditional onscreen authorities. ... But my first image of Marshall, spied through a peephole after my father’s excited declamation, remains my most vivid one. About 30 then, he walked toward our neighbor, swinging his arms apart and humming something, seeming for all the world like a defrocked chasid singing a niggun."
"And there’s the “Marxist” red tee-shirt he wore when doing a book talk on “Adventures in Marxism,” featuring Karl alongside the Marx brothers. Marshall Berman would definitely agree with Emma Goldman, who famously quipped, “If there won’t be dancing at the revolution, I’m not coming.”

PERSONAL: Born November 24, 1940, in New York, NY; son of Murray (a journalist) and Betty (Shur) Berman; married Carole Greenman, May 18, 1969 (marriage ended); married Meredith Tax, 1982 (divorced, 1990); married Shellie Sclan; children: (first marriage) Marc Joseph (deceased); (second marriage) Eli; (third marriage) Danny. Education: Columbia University, A.B. (summa cum laude), 1961; Oxford University, B.Litt., 1963; Harvard University, Ph.D., 1967. Politics: "Radical." Religion: Jewish.

CAREER: City College of the City University of New York, New York, NY, assistant professor, 1967–71, became associate professor, professor of political science, 1972–.

MEMBER: Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS: National Endowment for the Humanities senior fellowship, 1974.

WRITINGS:

• The Politics of Authenticity: Radical Individualism and the Emergence of Modern Society (1970) Reissued 2009 by Verso Press
• All That Is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience of Modernity (1982)
• Adventures in Marxism (1999)
• On the Town: One Hundred Years of Spectacle in Times Square (2006)
• New York Calling: From Blackout to Bloomberg (2007), edited by Marshall Berman and Brian Berger.
• "Introduction" to "The CommunistManifesto" by Karl Marx, Penguin Books 2010

Selected obituaries

• Jewish Forward, Dissent Magazine, New York Times, Patell and Waterman’s History of New York, http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/145134/marshall-berman-marxist-huma... THE SCROLL Marshall Berman, Marxist Humanist Mensch]

Sources

• Wedding notice