Henry Tischler grew up in Philadelphia and received his bachelor’s degree from Temple University and his masters and doctorate degrees from Northeastern University. He pursued postdoctoral studies at Harvard University. His first venture into textbook publishing took place while he was still a graduate student in sociology when he wrote the fourth edition of Race and Ethnic Relations with Brewton Berry. The success of that book led to his authorship of Introduction to Sociology.

Tischler has been a professor at Framingham State University in Framingham, Massachusetts, for several decades. He has also taught at Northeastern University, Tufts University, and Montclair State University. He continues to teach introductory sociology every year and has been instrumental in encouraging many students to major in the field. His other areas of interest are race and ethnicity, and crime and deviant behavior.

Professor Tischler has been active in making sociology accessible to the general population and has been the host of an author interview program on National Public Radio. He has also written a weekly newspaper column called “Society Today” which dealt with a wide variety of sociological topics.Henry Tischler divides his time between Boston and New York City. For forty two years he was married to Linda Tischler, a senior editor at a national magazine. He lost his wife in 2016. Tischler has a daughter Melissa, who is an associate partner and head of strategy at a consulting company, and a son Ben, who is an executive video producer.