Background
Walter Lippmann was born on September 23, 1889 in New York City. Son of Jacob and Daisy (Baum) Lippmann. The only child of a wealthy Jewish family.
Walter Lippmann was born on September 23, 1889 in New York City. Son of Jacob and Daisy (Baum) Lippmann. The only child of a wealthy Jewish family.
Lippmann was born in New York and graduated in 1910 from Harvard, where he associated with philosophers George Santayana and William James.
He began his journalistic career as editor of Lincoln Steffens’s Everybody’s Magazine in 191 1, published his first book, A Preface to Politics, in 1913, and a year later helped to found the liberal weekly New Republic, becoming its associate editor.
In 1917 Lippmann served as an assistant to the secretary of war and was a captain in military intelligence during World War I.
Lippmann joined the editorial staff of the reformist New York World in 1921, becoming its editor in 1929 and serving in that post until it ceased publication in 1931.
Lippmann’s political philosophy gradually moved from socialism to liberalism to neoconservatism. He advocated an internationalist foreign policy and warned against developments in modern society, such as the speed of communications, which might hinder the “liberal democracy he supported.
Member National Institute Arts and Letters, American Academy Arts and Letters, Phi Beta Kappa (senator 1934-1940). Clubs: Century, Harvard, Coffee House, River (New York City).