About Stephen Schlesinger
Stephen Schlesinger is a Fellow at the Century Foundation in New York City. He is the former Director of the World Policy Institute at the New School (1997-2006) and former publisher of the quarterly magazine, The World Policy Journal.
Mr. Schlesinger received his BA from Harvard University, a certificate of study from Cambridge University and a JD from Harvard Law School.
In the early 1970s, he edited and published The New Democrat Magazine. In 1972, he served as a speechwriter for Democratic Presidential candidate George McGovern.
He was later the weekly columnist for The Boston Globe’s “The L’t’ry Life.” Thereafter he spent four years as a staff writer at Time Magazine. For twelve years, he served as New York State Governor Mario Cuomo’s speechwriter and foreign policy advisor.
In the mid 1990s, he worked at the United Nations at Habitat, the agency dealing with cities.
He is the author of three books:
- Act of Creation (2003): The Founding of The United Nations for which he won the 2004 Harry S. Truman Book Award (other previous winners include John Lewis Gaddis and Alonzo Hamby)
- Bitter Fruit (1982): The Story of the U.S. Coup in Guatemala (with Stephen Kinzer) cited as one of the New York Times’ “notable books” for 1982 which has sold over 100,000 copies
- The New Reformers (1975)
He is also the co-editor of The Journals of Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr 1952-2000 (2007) and The Letters of Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr (2013). In 2016, he authored a new introduction to President Kennedy’s first book, Why England Slept. He has contributed chapters to eight books on international affairs.
He is a specialist on the foreign policy of the Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump Administrations. He has taught at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, Harvard University, and The New School and was a Visiting Scholar at New York University.
He is a frequent contributor to magazines and newspapers, including The Washington Post, The New York Times Book Review, The Los Angeles Times, Foreign Affairs, The World Policy Journal, The Nation Magazine, and The New York Observer.
In 1978, he was a finalist for the National Magazine Award. He has appeared on CNN, C-Span, NPR, BBC, Fox TV, Chris Matthews’ “Hardball”, MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”, Chuck Todd’s “The Daily Rundown” and other media outlets and is a contributor to Twitter (@cannon367), Linkedin.com, and BlogoftheCentury.tcf.org.
He is listed in Who’s Who In America, and Contemporary Authors. He has also appeared in ten UN documentaries, three on John Kennedy, and two on the CIA coup in Guatemala and he consulted on director Steven Soderbergh’s film “Che.” He has served on election monitoring missions for the National Democratic Institute in Bulgaria, Guatemala and Paraguay.
In October 2006, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan invited him to address the UN Secretariat (prior speakers: Amartya Sen, Leon Botstein, Desmond Tutu, Joseph Stiglitz, Jeffrey Sachs, Toni Morrison). He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Overseas Press Club, the UN Correspondents Association, PEN, the Author’s Guild, the FDR Institute Board of Governors, the Century Association, and is an Honorary Fellow of The Foreign Policy Association.
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