Prof. Dr. Benjamin R. Barber

About Benjamin R. Barber

Benjamin R. Barber is a Senior Research Scholar at The Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society of The Graduate Center, The City University of New York, President and Founder of the Interdependence Movement, and Walt Whitman Professor of Political Science Emeritus, Rutgers University. An internationally renowned political theorist, Dr. Barber brings an abiding concern for democracy and citizenship to issues of politics, globalisation, culture and education in America and abroad. He consults regularly with political and civic leaders in the U.S. (President Clinton, Howard Dean) and around the world (Germany, U.K., Libya, Italy).

Benjamin Barber’s 17 books include the classic Strong Democracy (1984) reissued in 2004 in a twentieth anniversary edition; the international best-seller Jihad vs. McWorld (1995 with a Post 9/11 Edition in 2001, translated into thirty languages) and most recently Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilise Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole, published by W.W. Norton & Co. in March, 2007 (ten foreign editions). His new book, If Mayors Ruled the World, was published by Yale University Press in 2013, and was the subject of his TED global talk, released in September 2013.

Barber’s honours include a knighthood (Palmes Academiques/Chevalier) from the French Government (2001), the Berlin Prize of the American Academy in Berlin (2001) and the John Dewey Award (2003). He has also been awarded Guggenheim, Fulbright, and Social Science Research Fellowships, honorary doctorates from Grinnell College, Monmouth University and Connecticut College, and has held the chair of American Civilisation at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris.

He blogs regularly for The Huffington Post and writes for The Nation, Harper’s Magazine, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic Monthly, The American Prospect, Le Nouvel Observateur, Die Zeit, La Repubblica, El País and The Guardian. He was a founding editor and for ten years editor-in-chief of the distinguished international quarterly Political Theory. He holds a certificate from the London School of Economics and an M.A. and Doctorate from Harvard University.

Barber appears often on television, including CNN, Fox News, Fox Business, the Tavis Smiley Show, Bill Moyers Journal, Charlie Rose, and GRITtv. With Patrick Watson he wrote the prize-winning ten-part PBS/BBC series The Struggle for Democracy and contributed to the British series Greek Fire. He wrote and narrated the film Music Inn, featured at the Tribeca and Munich film festivals. His plays have been produced off-Broadway and at regional theatres, while his song lyrics for British tenor Martin Best appear on the EMI concept album Knight on the Road. He wrote the libretto for George Quincy’s opera Home and the River, produced by Encompass in New York.