Jeffrey Hart

{{Infobox person

| name = Jeffrey Hart

| image = 2006-jeffreyhart.jpg

| caption = Hart in 2006

| birth_name = Jeffrey Peter Hart

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1930|02|23}}

| birth_place = Brooklyn, New York, U.S.

| death_date = {{Death date and age|2019|02|16|1930|02|23}}

| death_place = Fairlee, Vermont, U.S.

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| alma_mater = Dartmouth College
Columbia University (BA, PhD)

| employer = Dartmouth College
National Review

| occupation = Professor of English Literature

| years_active = 1963–1993

| title = Professor emeritus

| height =

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| party = Former Republican

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Jeffrey Peter Hart (February 23, 1930 – February 16, 2019) was an American cultural critic, essayist, columnist, and Professor Emeritus of English at Dartmouth College.

Life and career

Hart was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. After two years as an undergraduate at Dartmouth, he transferred to Columbia University, where he joined the Philolexian Society and obtained his B.A. (1952) and PhD, both in English literature.{{cite web

|url=http://ead.dartmouth.edu/html/ms941.html

|title=Guide to the Papers of Jeffrey P. Hart, 1982–2005

|accessdate=2008-10-30

|work=Rauner Special Collections Library

|publisher=Dartmouth College

|archive-date=September 15, 2015

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150915211640/http://ead.dartmouth.edu/html/ms941.html

|url-status=dead

}}{{Cite web|date=November 2001|title=BOOKSHELF|url=https://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/nov01/nov01_bookshelf1.html|access-date=August 13, 2020|website=Columbia College Today}}

During the Korean War he served in U.S. Naval Intelligence in Boston.

After a short period teaching at Columbia, Hart became Professor of English literature at Dartmouth for three decades (1963–1993). Hart specialized in 18th century literature but also had a fondness for modernist literature. His political contrarianism annoyed his faculty colleagues; when they were concerned about fossil fuels he made it a point to commute to campus in a Cadillac limousine.{{cite news

|first=Peter

|last=Robinson

|author-link=Peter Robinson (speechwriter)

|title=The Complete Hart

|url=http://www.nationalreview.com/15sept97/robinson091597.html

|work=National Review

|accessdate=2008-10-30

|url-status=dead

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041221013212/http://www.nationalreview.com/15sept97/robinson091597.html

|archive-date=December 21, 2004

}}

{{cite news

|first=James S. C.

|last=Baehr

|author-link=James S.C. Baehr

|title=Jeffrey Hart: Outside the Ivory Tower

|url=http://dartreview.com/issues/10.1.01/ivorytower.html

|work=Dartmouth Review

|date=October 1, 2001

|accessdate=2008-10-30

|url-status=dead

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070706141801/http://dartreview.com/issues/10.1.01/ivorytower.html

|archive-date=July 6, 2007

}}

{{cite news

|first=Dinesh

|last=D'Souza

|author-link=Dinesh D'Souza

|title=Serious Jokes

|url=http://www.nationalreview.com/15sept97/dsouza091597.html

|work=National Review

|accessdate=2008-10-30

|url-status=dead

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041216162326/http://www.nationalreview.com/15sept97/dsouza091597.html

|archive-date=December 16, 2004

}}

In 1962 he joined William F. Buckley's conservative journal National Review as a book reviewer, requiring a trip from Hanover, New Hampshire to New York City every other week. Later, he would contribute as a writer and senior editor for the better part of the ensuing three decades, even as he fulfilled his teaching responsibilities as a professor at Dartmouth.{{cite web|url=https://sanseverything.wordpress.com/2015/02/20/genocide-as-sanity-and-cultural-health-national-review-on-india/|title=Genocide as "Sanity and Cultural Health": National Review on India|first1=Jeet|last1=Heer|date=February 20, 2015}}

Hart took a leave of absence from Dartmouth in 1968 to work for the abortive presidential campaign of Governor of California Ronald Reagan. This role led him to briefly serve as a White House speechwriter for Richard Nixon. After nomination by his former student Reggie Williams, Hart was honored with his college's Outstanding Teaching Award in 1992. He also received the Young America's Foundation Engalitcheff Prize in 1996, among other academic accolades. In 1998, he served as a visiting lecturer at Nichols College.

The Dartmouth Review was founded in his living room in 1980, and he served as an adviser to it until his death. He wrote a regular column for King Features Syndicate and retired from teaching.

He launched a Burkean critique of the policies of President George W. Bush in the pages of the American Conservative, the Washington Monthly, and The Wall Street Journal. Hart supported John Kerry in the 2004 election and Barack Obama in 2008.

{{cite news

|first=Mostafa

|last=Heddaya

|author-link=Mostafa Heddaya

|title=TDR Exclusive Interview: Obamacon Jeffrey hart

|url=http://dartreview.com/archives/2008/10/21/tdr_exclusive_interview_obamacon_jeffrey_hart.php

|work=Dartmouth Review

|date=October 21, 2008

|accessdate=2008-10-30

|url-status=dead

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081026092818/http://dartreview.com/archives/2008/10/21/tdr_exclusive_interview_obamacon_jeffrey_hart.php

|archive-date=October 26, 2008

}}

{{cite news

|first=Jacob

|last=Heilbrunn

|author-link=Jacob Heilbrunn

|title=The Great Conservative Crackup: What National Review wrought.

|url=http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0605.heilbrunn.html

|date=May 2006

|work=Washington Monthly

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160513121956/http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0605.heilbrunn.html

|archive-date=May 13, 2016

}}

{{cite news

|first=Peter

|last=Jamison |author-link=Peter Jamison

|title=Archconservative Sides With Democrat

|url=http://www.vnews.com/02012008/4601389.htm

|work=Valley News

|location=White River Junction, Vermont

|date=February 7, 2008

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080207165639/http://www.vnews.com/02012008/4601389.htm

|archive-date=February 7, 2008}}

He died on February 16, 2019, at age 88.{{cite web |title=Jeffrey Hart, R.I.P. |url=https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/02/jeffrey-hart-r-i-p/ |work=National Review |date=February 18, 2019}}{{cite web |title=Professor Jeff Hart passes at 88 |url=http://dartreview.com/professor-jeff-hart-passes-at-88/ |website=The Dartmouth Review |accessdate=19 February 2019 |date=19 February 2019}}

Publications

{{external media| float = right| video1 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?166924-1/smiling-cultural-catastrophe Booknotes interview with Hart on Smiling Through the Cultural Catastrophe, January 13, 2002], C-SPAN| video2 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?191295-1/the-making-american-conservative-mind Presentation by Hart on The Making of the American Conservative Mind, February 9, 2006], C-SPAN}}

{{cite book |last=Burke |first=Edmund |author-link=Edmund Burke

|editor=Jeffrey Hart

|title=Speech on conciliation with the Colonies. Edited, with an introductory essay by Jeffrey Hart.

|series=A Gateway edition

|year=1964

|publisher=H. Regnery Co.

|location=Chicago

|oclc=1116479

|lccn=63020521 }}

{{cite book |last=Hart |first=Jeffrey Peter |author-link=Jeffrey Hart

|title=Political writers of eighteenth-century England

|edition=1st

|year=1964

|publisher=Knopf

|location=New York

|lccn=63020863 }}

{{cite book |last=Hart |first=Jeffrey Peter |author-link=Jeffrey Hart

|title=Viscount Bolingbroke, Tory humanist

|year=1965

|publisher=Routledge & K. Paul

|location=London |oclc=401312

|lccn=66000209 }}

"Raspail's Superb Scandal". Review of The Camp of the Saints by Jean Raspail. National Review, Vol. 27, September 26, 1975, pp. 1062–1063.
When the Going was Good: Life in the Fifties (1982)
From This Moment On: America in 1940 (1987)
{{cite book

|last=Hart

|first=Jeffrey Peter

|author-link=Jeffrey Hart

|title=Acts of recovery : essays on culture and politics

|url=https://archive.org/details/actsofrecoveryes00hart

|accessdate=2008-01-30

|year=1989

|publisher=University Press of New England

|location=Hanover, N.H.

|isbn=0-87451-504-1

|quote=In honor of Lionel Trilling

|url-access=registration

}}

{{cite web

|url=http://www.adti.net/education/news_jhart101300.html

|title=Dartmouth review is of the utmost importance

|accessdate=2008-10-30

|last=Hart

|first=Jeffrey

|author-link=Jeffrey Hart

|date=October 13, 2000

|publisher=Alexis de Tocqueville Institution

|location=Arlington, Virginia

|archive-url=http://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20060601225001/http://www.adti.net/education/news_jhart101300.html

|archive-date=June 1, 2006

|url-status=usurped

}}

Smiling Through the Cultural Catastrophe: Toward the Revival of Higher Education (2001)
The Making of the American Conservative Mind: National Review and Its Times (2006)
{{cite news |first=Jeffrey |last=Hart |author-link=Jeffrey Hart

|title=The Decade That Roared – These works are essential to appreciating American literature of the 1920s.

|url=http://www.opinionjournal.com/weekend/fivebest/?id=110010220

|work=Opinion Journal

|date=June 16, 2007

|accessdate=2008-10-30

}}

{{cite news |first=Jeffrey |last=Hart |author-link=Jeffrey Hart

|title=The Burke Habit – Prudence, skepticism and "unbought grace."

|url=http://www.opinionjournal.com/ac/?id=110007730

|work=Opinion Journal

|date=December 27, 2007

|accessdate=2008-10-30

|quote=Without a deep knowledge of history, policy analysis is feckless.

}}

References

External links

[http://www.opinionjournal.com/ac/?id=110007730 The Burke Habit Prudence, skepticism and "unbought grace."]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20061117175029/http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0610.hart.html Idéologie has taken over]
[http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_08_28/article9.html What is Left? What is Right]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20061003071537/http://www.hooverdigest.org/024/hart.html What Went Right in the West and Wrong in Islam]
{{cite journal

| author =James Seaton

|date= Spring 2007

| title = Prudential Conservatism?

| journal = The University Bookman

| volume =45

| issue = 2

| publisher = Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal / Educational Reviewer, Inc.

| url = http://www.kirkcenter.org/index.php/bookman/article/prudential-conservatism

| accessdate = 2008-10-30

| quote =Jeffrey Hart's The Making of the American Conservative Mind: National Review and Its Times is both a memoir of his years at National Review and a prescription for the sort of conservatism he favors.|author-link = James Seaton (professor)}}