Richard Aldous Reviews Walter Lippmann: An Intellectual Biography for the Wall Street Journal

Professor of History Richard Aldous published a review in the Wall Street Journal of Tom Arnold-Forster’s biography of Walter Lippmann, a twentieth-century journalist. Walter Lippmann: An Intellectual Biography follows Lippmann’s career as one of the most ubiquitous journalists of his era who wrote several books of democratic theory. Aldous evaluates Arnold-Forster’s biography as a good first book and a “fair hearing,” rather than a defense, for its subject. Despite being less well-known today than some of his contemporaries, Lippmann was significant because of his “arresting, often contradictory ideas [that shaped] the national debate,” argues Aldous. He says Lippman passed the litmus test “for all public intellectuals— to illuminate their own time and make us think about ours.”

Post Date: 06-20-2025