David Riesman

David Riesman (September 22, 1909 – May 10, 2002) was a sociologist, educator, and best-selling commentator on American society. 2Career Born to a wealthy German Jewish family, he attended Harvard College, where he graduated in 1931 with a degree in biochemistry. He attended Harvard Law School, where he was a member of the Harvard Law Review. Riesman clerked for Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis between 1935 and 1936. He also taught at the University of Buffalo Law School and at the University of Chicago. He worked for Sperry Gyroscope company during the war. After a fellowship at Yale to write the Lonely Crowd, he returned to Chicago. In 1958, he became a university professor at Harvard. Intellectually he was influenced most by Erich Fromm, as well as Carl Friedrich, Hannah Arendt, Leo Löwenthal, Robert K. Merton, Paul Lazarsfeld, Paul Goodman, Martha Wolfenstein, and Nathan Leites. He read widely in Karl Marx and Sigmund Freu