James Fallows
Jim Fallows | |
---|---|
White House Director of Speechwriting | |
In office January 20, 1977 – November 24, 1978 | |
President | Jimmy Carter |
Preceded by | Robert T. Hartmann |
Succeeded by | Bernard W. Aronson |
Personal details | |
Born | James Mackenzie Fallows August 2, 1949 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
Political party | Democratic |
Spouse | Deborah Fallows |
Children | 2 |
Education | Harvard University (BA) The Queen's College, Oxford |
James Mackenzie Fallows[1] (born August 2, 1949) is an American writer and journalist.[2] He is a former national correspondent for The Atlantic. His work has also appeared in Slate, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker and The American Prospect, among others. He is a former editor of U.S. News & World Report, and as President Jimmy Carter's chief speechwriter for two years was the youngest person ever to hold that job.[3][4]
Fallows has been a visiting professor at a number of universities in the U.S. and China, and has held the Chair in U.S. Media at the United States Studies Centre at University of Sydney. He is the author of eleven books, including National Defense (1981), for which he received the 1983 National Book Award,[5] Looking at the Sun (1994), Breaking the News (1996), Blind into Baghdad (2006), Postcards from Tomorrow Square (2009),[6] China Airborne (2012), and the national best-seller Our Towns (2018), which was co-written with his wife, Deborah Fallows, and made into an HBO documentary of the same name in 2021.
Biography
Fallows was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Jean (née Mackenzie) and James Albert Fallows, a physician.
For the first two years of the Carter administration he was Carter's chief speechwriter. At age 27, he became the youngest person in history to hold that position. From 1979 through 1996, he was the Washington Editor for The Atlantic Monthly (now The Atlantic). For two years of that time he was based in Texas, and for four years in Asia. He wrote for the magazine about immigration, defense policy, politics, economics, computer technology, and other subjects. He has been a finalist for the National Magazine Awards five times and won in 2003, for "The Fifty-First State?" (The Atlantic, November 2002), which was published six months before the invasion of Iraq and laid out the difficulties of occupying the country. He won the National Book Award for National Defense[5] and won a NY Emmy in 2010 for his role as host of a documentary series, Doing Business in China.[10]
Fallows's most influential articles have concerned military policy and military procurement, the college admissions process, technology, China and Japan, and the
In the 1980s and 1990s Fallows was a frequent contributor of commentaries to
Fallows is an instrument-rated pilot.
Fallows has had a long interest in technology, both writing about and helping to develop it. He's taken a special interest in
In September 2021, Fallows launched a Substack site called Breaking the News, whose title was based on his 1996 book of the same name.
Politics
Fallows, a former speechwriter for Democratic President
Awards
For the first paperback edition of National Defense, Fallows received a 1983 National Book Award for Nonfiction.[5][note 1] He was a finalist at the National Magazine Award in the years 1988, 2006 (twice), 2007 and had won the award in 2003 for his article The Fifty-First State?.[21] The documentary series On The Frontlines: Doing Business in China in which he participated as an editorial supervisor and co-host (together with Emily Chang) was awarded the 2010 Emmy Award.[22]
He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2019.[23]
Genetic ancestry
In 2012, Fallows gained notice for the results of the testing of his genetic makeup. In addition to the fact that the lineage shown on the mitochondrial DNA of his mother's side did not resemble any other samples found in a large-scale study, it was shown that Fallows had an abnormally high percentage of Neanderthal ancestry, at 5% of his genes being of Neanderthal origin. This drew attention from numerous scientists.[24][25]
Personal life
Fallows is married to writer and researcher Deborah Fallows, with whom he has two sons.[26][27] The book Our Towns (2018) was co-authored and researched by the couple, which became the basis for an HBO documentary film in 2021.[28]
Publications
Books
- Fallows, James (1971). The water lords: Ralph Nader's study group report on industry and environmental crisis in Savannah, Georgia. Grossman Publishers.
- Green, Mark; Fallows, James; Zwick, David (1972). Who runs Congress?. New York: Bantam Books.
- National Defense (1981). Random House. ISBN 0-394-51824-1
- Fallows, James (June 1981). "M-16: A Bureaucratic Horror Story: Why the rifles jammed". The Atlantic. One of three excerpts from National Defense published in The Atlantic.
- More Like Us: Making America Great Again (1989). Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-395-49857-0
- Looking at the Sun: The Rise of the New East Asian Economic and Political System (1994). Vintage Paperback (reprint ed., 1995) ISBN 0-679-76162-4
- Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy (1996). Pantheon Books. ISBN 0-679-75856-9
- Free Flight: Inventing the Future of Travel (2001). PublicAffairs Paperback (2002) ISBN 1-58648-140-1
- Blind into Baghdad: America's War in Iraq (2006). Vintage. ISBN 978-0-307-27796-1
- Postcards from Tomorrow Square: Reports from China (2009) Knopf. ISBN 978-0-307-47262-5
- China Airborne (2012) Random House. ISBN 978-0-375-42211-9
- Fallows, James; Fallows, Deborah (2018). Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey into the Heart of America. Pantheon Books.
Essays and reporting
External videos | |
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Washington Journal interview with Fallows on his article "The Tragedy of the American Military", January 7, 2015, C-SPAN |
- — (May 1979). "The Passionless Presidency: The trouble with Jimmy Carter's Administration". The Atlantic.
- — (September 1992). "Put Down That Bloody Shirt, Mr. President". The Washington Post.
- — (February 1996). "Why Americans Hate the Media". The Atlantic Monthly.
- — (August 1996). "Throwing like a girl". Sport. The Atlantic Monthly. 278 (2): 84–87.
- — (June 2009). "Inexact opposite: a hotel in Beijing shows off China's ability to (almost) get it right". The Atlantic. 303 (5): 28–29.
- — (August 2011). "In poll position". American Review. Archived from the originalon 2012-01-21.
- — (December 2012). "My fellow Americans ..." Spotlight. Vanity Fair. 628: 134.
- — (June 2013). "The art of paying attention [interview with Linda Stone]". Dispatches. Tech. The Atlantic. 311 (5): 22, 24.
- — (June 2013). "The Fixer". The Atlantic. 311 (5): 46–55.
- — (January 2015). "The Tragedy of the American Military". The Atlantic.
- — (March 2016). "How America Is Putting Itself Back Together". The Atlantic.
- — (May 2018). "The Reinvention of America". The Atlantic.
Explanatory notes
- National Book Awards historythere were several nonfiction subcategories including General Nonfiction, with dual hardcover and paperback awards in most categories. Most of the paperback award-winners were reprints, including this one.
References
- ^ "Fallows, James M. 1949- (James Fallows, James Mackenzie Fallows, Jim Fallows) | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com.
- ^ "'At 5% Neanderthal, You Are an Outlier'". The Atlantic. 11 October 2012.
- ^ Pilkington, Ed. Obama inauguration: Words of history ... crafted by 27-year-old in Starbucks, The Guardian, January 20, 2009.
- ^ Fallows, James. "Factual Error in Washington Post", James Fallows The Atlantic blog, December 18, 2008.
- ^ a b c "National Book Awards – 1983". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-11.
- ^ a b Steketee, Mike. "Urgent Need to Save Quality Journalism, Professor Warns", The Australian, February 16, 2009.
- ^ Fallows, James (8 November 2008). "James A. Fallows, 1925–2008". The Atlantic.
- ^ "James Fallows, Redlands' most famous writer, named to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences". Redlands News. 2019-04-18. Retrieved 2024-04-01.
- The University of Vermont. Archivedfrom the original on 2019-08-01. Retrieved 2019-08-01.
He has also served as the editor of U.S. News & World Report and on the staffs of The Washington Monthly and Texas Monthly.
- ^ Fallows, James. "More Emmy News", James Fallows The Atlantic blog, April 20, 2010.
- ISBN 978-0-7425-5914-1.
- ^ "Airplane Geeks Podcast". 20 January 2016. Retrieved 2019-07-31.
Jim is an instrument-rated pilot and owner of a Cirrus SR22.
- ^ "The Soul of a New Flying Machine". The Atlantic. 25 May 2001. Archived from the original on 14 January 2020. Retrieved 18 September 2018.
- ^ "UVM Names Honorary Degree Recipients for 2017 Commencement". Retrieved 18 September 2020.
- ^ "Agenda", The Atlantic, Bob Newell.
- ^ Fallows, James (15 September 1992). "Put Down That Bloody Shirt, Mr. President". The Washington Post.
Now the necessary disclaimers: I am a Democrat, and I hope Clinton wins.
- ^ Gerstein, Josh (22 November 2010). "A 'tipping point' in terror fight?". Politico. Archived from the original on 27 March 2012. Retrieved 21 September 2011.
- ^ Wilson, Reid (23 February 2009). "Dem primary victor for ex-Emanuel seat likely to win general". The Hill. Retrieved 21 September 2011.
- ^ "Capital Gang Sunday: The Forbes Candidacy". CNN. 21 January 1996.
- ^ Olson, Robert (January–February 2005)."The Rise of 'Radical Middle' Politics Archived 2012-07-16 at the Wayback Machine". The Futurist, vol. 39, no. 1, pp. 45–47. Publication of the World Future Society. Retrieved 26 February 2013.
- ^ "American Society of Magazine Editors – National Magazine Awards Database – Search 'James Fallows'". Archived from the original on 2011-05-26. Retrieved 2010-08-07.
- ^ "Google" (PDF). Archived from the original on July 25, 2011 – via www.google.com.
- ^ "New 2019 Academy Members Announced". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. 17 April 2019.
- ^ Fallows, James (October 11, 2012). "'At 5% Neanderthal, You Are an Outlier'". The Atlantic.
- ^ Fallows, James (October 9, 2012). "Neanderthal Me". The Atlantic.
- ^ "Weddings: Elizabeth Bennett and Thomas Fallows". The New York Times. 14 February 2009. p. ST11. Retrieved 8 May 2018.
- ^ "Deb Fallows". Retrieved 8 May 2018.
- ^ HBO - Our Towns
External links
- Fallows's Substack website
- Fallows's Atlantic website
- Audio of lecture delivered to the World Affairs Council of Northern California
- Audio/Video recording of James Fallows on his book Blind Into Baghdad: America's War in Iraq as part of the University of Chicago's World Beyond the Headlines series
- Appearances on C-SPAN
- James Fallows at IMDb