Arthur John Langguth (July 11, 1933 – September 1, 2014) was an American author, journalist and educator, born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was professor of the Annenberg School for Communications School of Journalism at the University of Southern California.[1][2] Langguth was the author of several dark, satirical novels, a biography of the English short story master Saki, and lively histories of the Trail of Tears, the American Revolution, the War of 1812, Afro-Brazilian religion in Brazil and the United States, the Vietnam War, the political life of Julius Caesar and U.S. involvement with torture in Latin America.
A graduate of Harvard College (AB, 1955), Langguth was South East Asian correspondent and Saigon bureau chief for The New York Times during the Vietnam War, using the byline "Jack Langguth".[3][4][5] He also wrote and reported for Look Magazine in Washington, DC and The Valley Times in Los Angeles, California. Langguth joined the journalism faculty at USC in 1976. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1976,[6] and received the Freedom Forum Award, honoring the nation's top journalism educators, in 2001. He retired from active teaching at USC in 2003.[7]
Langguth lived in Hollywood and died on September 1, 2014, at the age of 81.[8]