Max Lerner; Professor, Writer and Observer of Presidents

Max Lerner, author, professor and columnist whose work was distributed by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate for more than 20 years, died Friday in a New York hospital after a stroke. He was 89.

Lerner described his craft as “President watching.” His final column, rating Franklin D. Roosevelt the greatest President of the century and Herbert Hoover the worst, was distributed April 26.

Lerner’s books included “It Is Later Than You Think,” 1938; “Ideas Are Weapons,” 1939; “Ideas for the Ice Age,” 1941; “Public Journal,” 1945; “Actions and Passions,” 1950, and “The Unfinished Country,” 1960.

His greatest work was considered to be “America as a Civilization” in 1957.

Lerner considered himself a “possibilist” rather than an optimist or pessimist, noting: “To believe either that everything is bound to work out or that nothing will ever work out is equally an exercise in mindlessness.”

Born in Russia, Lerner immigrated to New York at 4. He earned his bachelor’s degree at Yale University, attended Washington University in St. Louis and received his doctorate in economics and government from the Robert Brookings Graduate School in Washington.

Lerner spent six years as managing editor of the Encyclopedia of Social Sciences. He was editor of the weekly magazine The Nation from 1936 to 1938, and later became editorial writer for the innovative newspaper P.M. He began his signed columns at P.M. in 1943.

Over the years, Lerner taught government at Sarah Lawrence College, Harvard University and Williams College. He spent 25 years teaching American civilization at Brandeis University before his retirement in 1973.

Lerner also taught briefly at Pomona College and at the Graduate School of Human Behavior at the U.S. International University in San Diego. As an octogenarian, he held the Welch Chair in American Studies at the University of Notre Dame for two years.

Lerner is survived by his wife, Edna Albers Lerner, a clinical psychologist, and six children.