Maurice Meisner
| Maurice Meisner | |
|---|---|
Maurice Meisner, 1989
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| Born |
November 17, 1931 Detroit, Michigan |
| Died | January 23, 2012 (aged 80) Madison, Wisconsin |
| Residence | Madison, Wisconsin |
| Employer | University of Wisconsin–Madison |
| Known for | Historian of modern China |
| Title | Harvey Goldberg Professor of History |
Maurice Jerome Meisner (November 17, 1931 – January 23, 2012) was an historian of 20th century China and professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His study of the Chinese revolution and the People's Republic was in conjunction with his strong interest in socialist ideology, Marxism, and Maoism in particular. He authored a number of books including Mao's China: A History of the People's Republic (and subsequent editions) which became a standard academic text in that area.
Maurice Meisner was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1931 to Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. He had two marriages each lasting about 30 years, first to Lorraine Faxon Meisner and subsequently to Lynn Lubkeman. He had three children from the first marriage and one child from the second. He died at his home in Madison, Wisconsin in 2012.
Meisner grew up in Detroit during the austere years of the Great Depression and World War II. But by the time he reached adulthood during the post-war boom, Detroit was a thriving center of culture as well as industry. He remained in Detroit, enrolling at Wayne State University. An outstanding student, Meisner was admitted to a graduate program there after only two years of college.
However this was also the beginning of the Cold War and the Red Scare in the U.S., having serious repercussions on the personal lives of Maurice Meisner and his wife Lorraine. As part of the McCarthy era investigations, Lorraine was subpoenaed before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1952 in relation to her attendance at the World Festival of Youth and Students held in East Berlin the previous year. Like most witnesses called before hearings of HUAC or the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS), Lorraine Meisner refused to testify to the body. Although this assertion of her Fifth Amendment rights had no direct legal consequences, David Henry, president of Wayne State University where she was also a student, saw fit to expel her from the university. Although seen as an unusually harsh move even at the time, other schools were reluctant to admit a student dismissed under such circumstances.
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