Martin Jay is the Sidney Hellman Ehrman Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a renowned intellectual historian and his research interests have been groundbreaking in connecting history with other academic and intellectual activities, such as the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School, other figures and methods in continental Social Theory, Cultural Criticism, and Historiography, among many others.

He is the author of many books, including, most recently: Refractions of Violence (2003); Songs of Experience: Modern American and European Variations on a Universal Theme (2004); The Virtues of Mendacity: On Lying in Politics (2010); and Essays from the Edge: Parerga and Paralipomena (2011).