Biography
Diggins was born in San Francisco on April 1, 1935, the son of an Irish immigrant.
Diggins received a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1957, a master's from San Francisco State College and a doctorate in 1964 at the University of Southern California. He was an assistant professor at San Francisco State College from 1963 to 1969, an associate professor and professor at the University of California, Irvine and was hired in 1990 as a Distinguished Professor at the CUNY Graduate Center.
Diggins’s three marriages ended in divorce. A resident of Manhattan, he died on January 28, 2009 from colorectal cancer. He was survived by his companion of 15 years, Elizabeth Harlan, a son and daughter, two sisters and two grandchildren.
Diggins held for a time the Chair in American Civilization at the L'Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Paris and was a visiting professor at Cambridge and Princeton University.
Diggins was also a consultant on some films and documentaries, including: "Between the Wars"; "Reds"; "John Dos Passos"; "The Greenwich Village Rebellion"; " Emma Goldman"; "The New York Intellectuals"; " The Future of the American left"; and "Il Duce, Fascismo e American" (Italian Television).
Diggins's interests ranged from the foundations of the United States to the postmodern world. "He declared Ronald Reagan to be "one of the two or three truly great presidents in history.”
An obituary reported that Diggins "was “critical of the anticapitalist Left for seeing in the abolition of property an end to oppression” but also “critical of the antigovernment Right for seeing in the elimination of political authority the end of tyranny and the restoration of liberty."
Read more about this topic: John Patrick Diggins
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“A biography is like a handshake down the years, that can become an arm-wrestle.”
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