The Manhattan Machiavelli: Roy Cohn

Many of us have heard of Roy Cohn. But we may not understand who he was, and what he did. An unscrupulous, mendacious lawyer and powerbroker, Cohn exerted a profound—some say adverse— impact on pivotal twentieth-century events, including the Alger Hiss and Rosenberg trials, the Red Scare and McCarthyism, organized-crime prosecutions, and the political rise of Donald Trump. This course provides an in-depth examination of Cohn’s life and influence through multimedia lectures incorporating research from sources including the 2019 documentary film, Where's My Roy Cohn?, the 2024 feature film The Apprentice, and Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Kai Bird and Susan Goldmark's 2026 biography, American Scoundrel. This course uses the Hybrid format which allows students to participate remotely and/or in the classroom. This course will be recorded. Students will have access to videos for the duration of the course.