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Most historians at major universities spend their careers working on original research that typically ends up in scholarly journals, but not Hy Berman. Berman, who taught history at the University of Minnesota from 1961 to 2004, was best known for making history accessible to the general public.

How the child of Polish immigrants in New York City, who started school speaking only Yiddish, became Minnesota's most famous historian is quite a story. It's told in a new book: “Professor Berman: The Last Lecture of Minnesota's Greatest Public Historian.” Hy Berman died in 2015, but in the last years of his life he worked with writer Jay Weiner on the book. Jay talked about the book with Morning Edition host Cathy Wurzer.

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How the child of Polish immigrants in New York City, who started school speaking only Yiddish, became Minnesota's most famous historian is quite a story. It's told in a new book by Jay Weiner: “Professor Berman: The Last Lecture of Minnesota's Greatest Public Historian.”

Hy Berman's last lecture

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