{{Short description|American author and historian}} {{Infobox writer | name = Jay Winik | image = File:Jay Winik by Carl Caruso, 2015.jpg | imagesize = 150px | alt = | birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1957|02|08}} | birth_place = New Haven, Connecticut, U.S. | occupation = Writer and historian | alma_mater = Yale College<br /> London School of Economics Yale University | notableworks = ''April 1865'', ''The Great Upheaval'', ''1944'' }}
'''Jay Winik''' (born February 8, 1957) is an author and historian who wrote ''April 1865: The Month That Saved America''.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/books/01/04/22/reviews/010422.22byrdlt.html The Month That Was | New York Times]</ref>
== Education and early career == Winik is an honors graduate of Yale College. He also holds an M.Sc. in economics from the London School of Economics with distinction and a Ph.D. from Yale University. He played on the Yale tennis team and was an editor of the ''Yale Daily News''.<ref>''April 1865'', HarperCollins, 2006, P.S. Section</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2016-03-21 |title=Jay Winik - 1944: FDR and the Year That Changed History |url=http://jaywinik.com/index.php/about/jay_winik/ |access-date=2023-11-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160321184933/http://jaywinik.com/index.php/about/jay_winik/ |archive-date=2016-03-21 }}</ref>
==Career== He had a brief career in the U.S. government's foreign policy, involving civil wars around the globe, from the former Yugoslavia to El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Cambodia, including helping to create the United Nations plan to end the Cambodian Civil War. In 1991, he took up writing history full-time.<ref>''The Great Upheaval'', HarperCollins, 2008, P.S. Section</ref>
He has been the [http://www.cfr.org/experts/world/jay-winik/b21746 inaugural Historian-in-Residence] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170411055339/http://www.cfr.org/experts/world/jay-winik/b21746 |date=2017-04-11 }} at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Winik's articles and history book reviews have been published in the ''New York Times'', ''Atlantic'' magazine, ''Time'' magazine, ''Newsweek'', ''National Review'', ''The Washington Post'', and ''The Wall Street Journal'', to which he has been a frequent contributor.<ref>Jay Winik, ''The Wall Street Journal'', “We Watched Andre Agassi Grow," September 6, 2006</ref> He has appeared on national broadcasts such as ''The Today Show'', ''Fresh Air'' and ''Morning Edition'' with Scott Simon, ''CNN'', ''Good Morning America'', and ''The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer''. He has provided historical commentary for documentaries on the History Channel and PBS as well as C-SPAN, and was the Presidential Historian for Fox News for Barack Obama's and Donald Trump's 2017 inaugurations and Senator Ted Kennedy's funeral.
In 2002 he was a regular on the History Channel weekly show, ''The History Center''. He was a principal history commentator for the History Channel special ''Pearl Harbor: 24 Hours After''. In 2013, he was a historical advisor to National Geographic and the consulting historian for their six-part series, ''The 1980s: The Decade That Made Us'', which aired in over 100 countries.
In a ''New York Times'' op-ed, Winik correctly predicted a long guerrilla struggle in Iraq, while ''Time'' magazine noted that Winik's ''April 1865'' was a powerful reminder about how a war's end is every bit as important as how or why it had begun.<ref>Jay Winik, ''The New York Times'', "A Brief History of the Resistance", December 16, 2003; John Dickerson, ''Time'' magazine, January 17, 2005.</ref>
==Reception== The ''Baltimore Sun'' has called Winik “one of the nation's leading public historians”.<ref name=sun>''Baltimore Sun'', 10-14-2007</ref> He is the author of the highly acclaimed, number one bestseller ''April 1865'' (2001), which also became a History Channel documentary and a stage production, both of which feature him.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2016-03-21 |title=Jay Winik - 1944: FDR and the Year That Changed History |url=http://jaywinik.com/index.php/about/jay_winik/ |access-date=2023-11-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160321184933/http://jaywinik.com/index.php/about/jay_winik/ |archive-date=2016-03-21 }}</ref> In 2007 Winik published the ''New York Times''' bestselling ''The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World'', which both ''USA Today'' and ''The Financial Times'' picked as one of their “Best Books of the Year.”<ref>Amazon.com, ''The Great Upheaval'', reviews section; Gordon Wood, ''The New York Review of Books'', November 8, 2007</ref> Winik's latest book is ''1944: FDR and the Year That Changed History'', also a ''NYT'' best-seller.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://books.simonandschuster.com/1944/Jay-Winik/9781439114087|title=1944|work=simonandschuster.com|access-date=3 March 2015}}</ref> It has stimulated a broad national conversation about morality and foreign policy.
Winik has been read by political leaders including Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Harry Reid, and Mitch McConnell as well as Chief Justice John Roberts and numerous celebrities.<ref>Sheryl Gay Stolberg, ''The New York Times'', December 25, 2008; ''The Washington Post'', Reliable Source, September 28, 2007</ref> Winik appears on the first page of George W. Bush's presidential memoir ''Decision Points'', discussing the craft of writing history with the president. Just after the September 11 attacks, Bush was seen carrying ''April 1865'' in the White House.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/01/10/bush.readinglist.tm/|title=What the president reads|last=Dickerson|first=John F.|date=January 10, 2005|website=www.cnn.com|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2017-11-15}}</ref>
In 2017 in the ''New York Times'', actor Tom Hanks read an excerpt from ''April 1865'' to Maureen Dowd about slavery and race relations.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/11/style/tom-hanks-uncommon-type-harvey-weinstein-donald-trump.html|title=Hollywood's Most Decent Fella on Weinstein, Trump and History|last=Dowd|first=Maureen|date=2017-10-11|work=The New York Times|access-date=2017-11-15|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> He told the ''NYT'' that Winik's ''April 1865'' is on his nightstand.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/books/review/tom-hanks-by-the-book.html|title=Tom Hanks: By the Book|work=The New York Times|access-date=2017-11-15|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> Peggy Noonan also told the ''NYT'' that ''1944'' is on her nightstand.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/20/books/review/peggy-noonan-by-the-book.html|title=Peggy Noonan: By the Book|date=2015-12-17|work=The New York Times|access-date=2017-11-15|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>
==Affiliations==
Winik serves as a trustee or advisory board member on a number of nonprofit boards, including for ''American Heritage Magazine'', the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, Ford's Theatre Society, and its Lincoln Legacy Project, The Civil War Preservation Trust, the Lincoln Forum, the Washington Tennis and Education Foundation, and the Potomac School, as well as the Governing Council of the National Endowment for the Humanities.<ref>National Endowment for the Humanities Website, https://www.neh.org</ref> He also currently serves on the board of trustees for The American Folk Life Center<ref>American Folk Life Center Website, https://www.loc.gov/folklife/</ref> of the Library of Congress, as well as the Veterans History Project<ref>Veterans History Project Website, https://www.loc.gov/vets/</ref> of the Library of Congress.
==Memberships== He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and an elected Fellow of the Society of American Historians. Appointed by the President, he is on the board of trustees of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.<ref>[https://www.ushmm.org/information/press/press-releases/president-trump-appoints-new-council-member-1 United States Holocaust Memorial: Press Release April 30th, 2020: President Trump appoints new council member]</ref>
== Works == {{external media| float = right| video1 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?164163-1/april-1865-month-saved-america Presentation by Winik on ''April 1865'', April 12, 2001], C-SPAN| video2 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?164644-1/april-1865-month-saved-america ''Booknotes'' interview with Winik on ''April 1865'', July 29, 2001], C-SPAN| video3 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?200714-5/the-great-upheaval ''Washington Journal'' interview with Winik on ''The Great Upheaval'', September 14, 2007], C-SPAN| video4 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?327596-14/jay-winik-1944 Presentation by Winik on ''1944'', September 5, 2015], C-SPAN}} *{{cite book| title=The Great Upheaval|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nuLtNUDO7l4C|date=13 October 2009|publisher=HarperCollins|isbn=978-0-06-182671-9}} *''April 1865: The Month That Saved America'', G.K. Hall, 2001, {{ISBN|9780783895819}}; {{cite book| title=April 1865|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gUfZxiau_fgC|date=16 November 2010|publisher=HarperCollins|isbn=978-0-06-202920-1}} *''1944: FDR and the Year That Changed History'', Simon & Schuster, 2015, {{ISBN|9781439114087}}.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ward |first=Geoffrey |title=Roosevelt and Auschwitz |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/roosevelt-and-auschwitz-1442609477 |access-date=2024-04-17 |work=WSJ |language=en-US}}</ref> *''1861: The Lost Peace'', Grand Central Publishing, 2025, {{ISBN|978-1538735121}}.
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *{{C-SPAN|44360}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Winik, Jay}} Category:Living people Category:1957 births Category:20th-century American historians Category:21st-century American historians Category:21st-century American male writers Category:Writers from New Haven, Connecticut Category:Yale College alumni Category:Alumni of the London School of Economics Category:20th-century American male writers Category:American male non-fiction writers Category:Historians from Connecticut