Lemann, Nicholas 1954–

PERSONAL:

Surname is pronounced "lemon"; born August 11, 1954, in New Orleans, LA; son of Thomas B. (a lawyer) and Barbara M. (a psychologist) Lemann; married Dominique A. Browning (an editor), May 20, 1983 (divorced); married Judith Shulevitz (an editor), November, 1999; children: Four children, including Alexander B. and Theo. Education: Harvard University, B.A., 1976. Religion: Jewish.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Pelham, NY. Office—Columbia University, Graduate School of Journalism, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY 10027. Agent—Amanda Urban, International Creative Management, 40 W. 57th St., New York, NY 10019. E-mail—nl2124@columbia.edu.

CAREER:

Writer, editor. Washington Monthly, Washington, DC, managing and contributing editor, 1976—; Texas Monthly, Austin, TX, associate, contributing, and executive editor, beginning 1978; Washington Post, Washington, DC, reporter, 1979-81; Atlantic Monthly, Boston, MA, national correspondent, beginning 1983; affiliated with New Yorker, New York, NY, 1999—; Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia University, New York, NY, dean, 2003—.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Los Angeles Times Book Award for History, 1991, for The Promised Land: The Black Migration and How It Changed America.

WRITINGS:

(Editor, with Charles Peters) Inside the System, Prentice-Hall (Engelwood Cliffs, NJ), 1978, 4th edition, Holt (New York, NY), 1979.

The Fast Track: Texans and Other Strivers (essays; includes "Sherwood Blount's First Million," "Big Oil," "Little Oil," "The Split," and "The Medical Center"), W.W. Norton (New York, NY), 1981.

Out of the Forties (nonfiction), Texas Monthly (Austin, TX), 1983.

The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America (nonfiction), Knopf (New York, NY), 1991.

The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (New York, NY), 1999.

Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to periodicals.

SIDELIGHTS:

A journalist who has held positions at the Washington Post and Atlantic Monthly, Nicholas Lemann has also distinguished himself as an accomplished writer of nonfiction. His first work to receive critical attention was The Fast Track: Texans and Other Strivers, a collection of essays that focuses on a variety of ambitious people, including a Texas real-estate mogul, a prominent heart surgeon, and the founding mother of Off-Off-Broadway theater. Lemann's thesis, speculated R.J. Davis in the Washington Post, "is that the lust for cash is the least of the many fuels that propel the wheels of commerce; far more important is the desire to do something that one does well." Reviewers responded favorably to The Fast Track; New Republic contributor Anne Tyler, for instance, deemed it "an absorbing collection—a crisply written, clear-eyed study of America's travels upward." And though Davis assessed that the book was lacking in cohesiveness, he remarked that "we shall doubtless be hearing more of Nicholas Lemann in the future."

Lemann's next work, Out of the Forties, provides a glimpse of the past through a selection of photographs from the 1940s. Lemann chose the pictures from a collection of 85,000 that were commissioned by Standard Oil (now Exxon) as part of a campaign designed to bolster the company's image. The photographs document a wide variety of American experiences and are judged by Lemann as "perhaps the best portrayal of the middle and late 1940s in any medium," quoted Washington Post Book World critic Jonathan Yardley. Some reviewers commented that the pictures alone would have made for an engaging book: a young girl observes her father fixing the family car; wide-eyed teenagers in New Jersey watch their first television set; cowboys play cards in a Texas bunkhouse; a farmer and his family lounge on a service-station porch in North Carolina. Yet rather than let the images stand unaccompanied, Lemann found and interviewed some of the people that appeared in them and included their stories in Out of the Forties.

The result, Yardley declared, is an "unusually appealing and provocative book" in which the photographs are used "as the starting point from which to explore the validity of … nostalgia" as well as to illustrate the changes that took place in America between the 1940s and 1980s. "In this antidote to sentimental memoirs," wrote New York Times Book Review contributor Peter Davis, "Nicholas Lemann manages to mingle nostalgia with bitterness, anger with pride in a fashion reminiscent of Michael Lesy's now semiclassic Wisconsin Death Trip." Davis also commented on the power of the photographs, judging that "the images assault, caress, beckon, haunt."

The 1940s also serve as a launching point for Lemann's highly acclaimed best-seller The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America, which chronicles the large black population shift from the rural South to the urban North that began in that period. Much of the impetus for this movement is credited to the advent of the mechanical cotton picker in the mid-1940s, a machine that did the work of fifty people and one that made the sharecropper system obsolete. Many Southern blacks—approximately four million between 1940 and 1970—subsequently migrated North in search of jobs and a better life. Lemann begins his narrative by following several typical black families from the Mississippi Delta town of Clarksdale to Chicago, outlining their hopes of finding the "promised land." While this migration eventually gave rise to a sizable black middle-class, a number of blacks fared no better in the city than they did as sharecroppers. Often poverty and racism kept them relegated to ghettos where crime was rampant, families and other institutions unstable, well-paying jobs scarce, and the quality of life akin to that in some Third World countries.

Against this personal and historical background, Lemann details how public policymakers in Washington, DC, attempted to address the problems faced by many urban blacks. He describes, for instance, how President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty program impacted the ghettos and the individuals who lived in them. Some federal efforts worked, such as the Head Start program for impoverished preschool children and the creation of government jobs. But attempts to improve life within inner cities—to establish what was called at the time "gilded ghettos"—were largely unsuccessful because, as Seymour Martin Lipset observed in Times Literary Supplement, "Blacks do not want a ‘gilded ghetto’; they want to get out of the ghetto." While the failure of government programs to eradicate the social problems of the black urban poor and the rise of conservatism discouraged policymakers from attempting larger efforts, Lemann argues that the government simply did not go far enough.

Although the problems that continue to face those in the primarily black urban "underclass" are unwieldy, Lemann believes they are not unsolvable. His optimistic, thorough, and personal approach won the favor of many critics. "Lemann reminds the reader that certain conditions in black America remain intolerable. As a result, he stirs one's conscience," wrote Christopher Lehmann-Haupt in the New York Times. Lipset remarked that The Promised Land "reads like a novel; or rather like a series of short stories, which enable the reader to understand the lives of the characters in them." Washington Post Book World critic Jonathan Yardley termed the book "purposeful and original" and C. Vann Woodward, writing in New York Times Book Review, stated that Lemann "has fulfilled an important and neglected need. Furthermore, he has done this with skill and devotion, and his book deserves wide attention." Lipset concluded that "on very rare occasions, a book can turn a nation's social and political outlook around. This one is good enough to do it."

In The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy, Lemann describes the history and social impact of the educational testing industry. College-admissions tests such as the SAT were developed in the 1930s, intended to make college admissions more a matter of natural intelligence rather than social connections. Yet the tests seemed to perpetuate the system they were intended to break up. Lemann discusses the great anxiety modern students feel about taking the test, knowing that their scores may have a significant influence on the quality of school they are admitted to, the quality of job they will go on to obtain, and the quality of their entire life. In an interview for People Weekly, Lemann was quoted as saying: "One thing I find horrifying is the test-preparation craze…. There's a new tier emerging—prepping as early as seventh grade, hiring a 500-dollar-an-hour tutor or someone who will help write your admissions application essay for 3,000 dollars. It's a way for those with money to manipulate the system in their kids' favor."

A reviewer for Business Week called The Big Test "one of the most astute and disquieting efforts of the season. What begins as a chronicle of the evolution of standardized testing ends as a penetrating commentary on today's frantic skirmish for a place in the professional upper middle class. Lemann shows how our educational system, ‘one of the United States' great original social contributions,’ has become a giant—and somewhat rigged—slot machine…. The Big Test is a very enjoyable read." Booklist reviewer Mary Carroll, in discussing The Big Test, noted: "[Lemann] … infuses a potentially dry topic with life and energy" and called the book "a fascinating subject, fascinatingly studied."

Lemann's 2006 work, Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War, is a study of how Southern whites attempted to redeem their defeat in the Civil War by suppressing black freedom through terror and political chicanery. Much of Lemann's book focuses on the actions of the racial supremacist White Leaguers in Louisiana and Mississippi. Writing in the New York Times Book Review, Sean Wilentz felt the author "simplifies too much" in his narrative, yet also observed that the book "offers a vigorous, necessary reminder of how racist reaction bred an American terrorism that suppressed black political activity and crushed Reconstruction in the South." Library Journal contributor Thomas J. Davis felt that Lemann "personalizes the gruesome racial politics from which U.S. apartheid and its legacies emerged with the nation's acquiescence" by his use of the private papers of those involved, including the well-intentioned Republican governor of Mississippi, Adelbert Ames. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly had praise for Lemann's chronicle, noting that the author "delivers an engrossing but painful account of a disgraceful episode in American history." Similar praise came from a Kirkus Reviews critic who called Redemption "a sobering account of the true end of Reconstruction, long suppressed in favor of the self-serving fairy tale peddled by the victors."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

America, August 31, 1991, review of The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America, p. 124.

American Spectator, June, 1991, review of The Promised Land, pp. 9, 14.

Atlantic Monthly, October 2006, review of Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War, p. 126.

Black Enterprise, February, 1992, review of The Promised Land, p. 244.

Booklist, August, 1999, Mary Carroll, review of The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy, p. 1982; September 15, 2006, Vanessa Bush, review of Redemption, p. 19.

Business Week, October 25, 1999, review of The Big Test, p. 15.

Center Magazine, November-December, 1983, review of Out of the Forties, p. 18.

Christian Century, December 12, 2006, review of Redemption, p. 23.

Commentary, August, 1991, review of The Promised Land, p. 62; October, 1999, review of The Big Test, pp. 57-60.

Daily News (New York, NY), April 16, 2003, "New York City Journalism Graduate School Gets Dean."

Economist, April 6, 1991, review of The Promised Land, p. 86.

Esquire, February, 1991, review of The Promised Land, p. 31.

Fortune, October 25, 1999, review of The Big Test, p. 68.

Glamour, March, 1991, review of The Promised Land, p. 206.

Journal of American History, March, 1992, review of The Promised Land, p. 1510.

Journal of Regional Science, November, 1991, review of The Promised Land, p. 494.

Kirkus Reviews, July 1, 2006, review of Redemption, p. 666.

Library Journal, February 15, 1991, review of The Promised Land, p. 207; September 1, 1999, review of The Big Test, p. 211; July 1, 2006, Thomas J. Davis, review of Redemption, p. 90.

Nation, April 22, 1991, review of The Promised Land, p. 528.

National Catholic Reporter, November 22, 1991, review of The Promised Land, p. 37.

National Review, August 26, 1991, review of The Promised Land, p. 39.

Nation's Cities Weekly, April 22, 1991, review of The Promised Land, p. 3.

New Leader, April 8, 1991, review of The Promised Land, p. 14.

New Republic, June 13, 1981, Anne Tyler, review of The Fast Track: Texans and Other Strivers, pp. 31-32; May 17, 1991, review of The Promised Land, p. 35.

New Statesman, August 23, 1991, review of The Promised Land, p. 36.

Newsweek, March 18, 1991, review of The Promised Land, p. 62.

New York, October 11, 1999, review of The Big Test, p. 104.

New York Review of Books, March 28, 1991, review of The Promised Land, p. 11.

New York Times, February 21, 1991, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, review of The Promised Land, p. C18; August 11, 2006, Katharine Q. Seelye, "2 Editors Resign at Web Site Linked to Journalism Review," p. C3.

New York Times Book Review, July 31, 1983, Peter Davis, review of Out of the Forties, pp. 9, 20; February 24, 1991, C. Vann Woodward, review of The Promised Land, pp. 1, 24; October 24, 1999, review of The Big Test, p. 6; September 10, 2006, Sean Wilentz, "A Less Perfect Union," review of Redemption.

People Weekly, August 22, 1983, review of Out of the Forties, p. 10; November 22, 1999, "Testing, Testing," interview with Lemann, p. 187.

Progressive, June, 1991, review of The Promised Land, p. 40.

Public Interest, summer, 1991, review of The Promised Land, p. 3.

Publishers Weekly, May 15, 1981, review of The Fast Track, p. 53; January 11, 1991, review of The Promised Land, p. 87; November 22, 1991, review of The Promised Land, p. 15; August 30, 1999, review of The Big Test, p. 61; November 1, 1999, review of The Big Test, p. 50; May 29, 2006, review of Redemption, p. 46.

Reason, October, 1991, review of The Promised Land, p. 60.

Tikkun, November-December, 1991, review of The Promised Land, p. 85.

Time, March 11, 1991, review of The Promised Land, p. 72; October 4, 1999, review of The Big Test, p. 100.

Times Literary Supplement, May 31, 1991, Seymour Martin Lipset, review of The Promised Land, p. 5.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), February 17, 1991, review of The Promised Land, pp. 1, 4.

USA Today Magazine, July, 1991, review of The Promised Land, p. 96.

U.S. News and World Report, March 4, 1991, review of The Promised Land, p. 55; April 22, 1991, review of The Promised Land, p. 23; October 25, 1999, review of The Big Test, p. 16.

Washington Monthly, May, 1991, review of The Promised Land, p. 51; September, 2006, John Meacham, review of Redemption, p. 54.

Washington Post, May 25, 1981, R.J. Davis, review of The Fast Track, p. E7.

Washington Post Book World, June 19, 1983, Jonathan Yardley, review of Out of the Forties, pp. 3, 7; March 10, 1991, Jonathan Yardley, review of The Promised Land, p. 3.

Yale Review, spring, 1984, review of Out of the Forties, p. 438.

ONLINE

Columbia University Journalism School Web site,http://www.jrn.columbia.edu/ (January 29, 2007), "Nicholas Lemann."

PEN American Center Web site,http://www.pen.org/ (January 29, 2007), "Nicholas Lemann."