Paul Buhle

Paul Buhle
Paul Buhle in Providence (c. 2007)
Born	Paul Merlyn Buhle September 27, 1944 (1944-09-27) (age 72) Champaign, Illinois
Alma mater	University of Illinois University of Connecticut University of Wisconsin–Madison
Spouse	Mari Jo Buhle

Paul Merlyn Buhle (born September 27, 1944) is a (retired) Senior Lecturer at Brown University, author or editor of 35 volumes including histories of radicalism in the United States and the Caribbean, studies of popular culture, and a series of nonfiction comic art volumes. He is the authorized biographer of C. L. R. James.

Buhle was born in Champaign, Illinois, on September 27, 1944. His mother was a registered nurse with the maiden name of Pearle Drake. His father, Merlyn Buhle, was a geologist. On December 30, 1963, Paul Buhle married Mari Jo Kupski, who later earned a doctorate in history and co-authored several works with Buhle.

Buhle graduated from the University of Illinois in 1966, where he had been a spokesperson for the chapter of Students for a Democratic Society's antiwar activities. He received a Master's degree from the University of Connecticut (in 1967) and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison (in 1975). He had been active in the civil rights movement in SDS, and a member for some months of the Socialist Labor Party. In 2006-07, he was one of the founding figures of the new Students for a Democratic Society, and more recently a leader of the Movement for a Democratic Society.

Buhle was founding editor of the journal Radical America (1967–1999), an unofficial organ of Students for a Democratic Society, founder of Cultural Correspondence (1977–83), a journal of popular culture studies, and founder and director of the Oral History of the American Left archive at New York University in 1976. In Rhode Island, he co-founded the Rhode Island Labor History Society, was active in labor history and labor support activities and produced several popular histories of the state's labor movement. He also produced Vanishing Rhode Island, a pictorial history and plea for preservation; and with his students, Underground Rhode Island. He has contributed frequently to the journals and newspapers The Nation, The Village Voice, Monthly Review, Jewish Currents, The Chronicle of Higher Education and The San Francisco Chronicle.