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. He is the President and Founder of the Interdependence Movement and Walt Whitman Professor of Political Science Emeritus at Rutgers University. Dr. Barber consults regularly with political and civic leaders in the U.S. (President Clinton, Howard Dean) and around the world (Germany, U.K., Libya, Italy).
Barber’s 17 books include the classic Strong Democracy (1984); the international bestseller Jihad vs. McWorld (1995, with a Post 9/11 Edition in 2001, translated into thirty languages); and Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole (W.W. Norton & Co., 2007). Most recently he is the author of If Mayors Ruled the World (2014; now in eight foreign editions including Chinese, Korean, Dutch, Polish, French and Catalan), and he has just completed Stopping Hot Cold: Cities and Climate Change, which will appear in 2016.
Barber’s honors 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 Civilization 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 Political Theory.
He holds a certificate from the London School of Economics and an M.A. and Doctorate from Harvard University.