James MacGregor Burns

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James MacGregor Burns (born August 3, 1918 in Melrose, MA) was an American historian and political scientist, presidential biographer, and authority on leadership studies.

He was the Woodrow Wilson Professor of Government Emeritus at Williams College and the Distinguished Leadership Scholar at the James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Burns' 1971 award-winning writer and bibliography for his book on America's 32nd president, Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom.

He was best known for his contributions to the transformational, aspirational, and visionary schools of leadership theory.

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Academic career

Burns joined the faculty of Williams College in 1947, and taught there for nearly 40 years, retiring in 1986. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he served as president of the American Political Science Association and the International Society of Political Psychology. He was also an elected member of the American Philosophical Society. During the early 1990s he taught classes at the University of Maryland, where he was inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa (ODK) and was honored with the naming of the James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership. In 2004 he was also awarded the Laurel Crowned Circle Award, ODK's highest honor. In 2010 he won the Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. Award for Distinguished Writing in American History of Enduring Public Significance presented jointly by the Roosevelt Institute and the Society of American Historians.

A liberal, in 1958 Burns was the unsuccessful Democratic nominee in Massachusetts's 1st congressional district, meeting then-U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy and helping him gain Protestant support to get re-elected, while Kennedy helped him gain Catholic support. Burns gained personal access that allowed him to write his biography of Kennedy, published in 1960, which calls JFK "casual as a cash register," "quiet, taut, efficient—sometimes, perhaps, even dull," and generally too cerebral and lacking in heart. This angered Kennedy's wife Jackie, who said Burns "underestimated" him.

Before he went to Williams College to become a professor, Burns graduated from Lexington High School in Massachusetts in 1935. Burns styled himself a Congregationalist. He and his first wife had four children, three of who survived him. In 1964, he met Joan Simpson Meyers, daughter of renowned paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson, in New York City when she interviewed him for her best-selling book about President John Fitzgerald Kennedy; four years later Burns and Meyers were married at High Mowing, the family home in Williamstown, where they lived together for the next quarter century. At the end of his life, he was friends with his first wife, but lived with his collaborator and longtime companion, Professor Susan Dunn.

Burns died in Williamstown, Massachusetts, on July 15, 2014, at 95, after publishing more than 20 books.

Political career

A liberal, in 1958 Burns was the unsuccessful Democratic nominee in Massachusetts's 1st congressional district, meeting then-U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy and helping him gain Protestant support to get re-elected, while Kennedy helped him gain Catholic support. Burns gained personal access that allowed him to write his biography of Kennedy, published in 1960, which calls JFK "casual as a cash register," "quiet, taut, efficient—sometimes, perhaps, even dull," and generally too cerebral and lacking in heart. This angered Kennedy's wife Jackie, who said Burns "underestimated" him.

Before he went to Williams College to become a professor, Burns graduated from Lexington High School in Massachusetts in 1935. Burns styled himself a Congregationalist. He and his first wife had four children, three of who survived him. In 1964, he met Joan Simpson Meyers, daughter of renowned paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson, in New York City when she interviewed him for her best-selling book about President John Fitzgerald Kennedy; four years later Burns and Meyers were married at High Mowing, the family home in Williamstown, where they lived together for the next quarter century. At the end of his life, he was friends with his first wife, but lived with his collaborator and longtime companion, Professor Susan Dunn.

Burns died in Williamstown, Massachusetts, on July 15, 2014, at 95, after publishing more than 20 books.

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