American author and historian
John M. Barry |
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Barry in 2023 |
Born | (1947-04-12) April 12, 1947 (age 77)
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Education | |
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John M. Barry (born 1947) and Distinguished Scholar at Tulane's Bywater Institute.
Life and education
Barry was born in
Providence, Rhode Island and graduated from
Brown University in 1968.
[2] He entered a Ph.D. program at the
University of Rochester but withdrew from graduate school in the middle of the semester after he received his M.A. in History in 1969.
[3]
He then coached high school and college football. In 2021 he was inducted into the Tulane University Athletic Hall of Fame for his role as a coach of the 1973 Tulane football team, and his first several published articles appeared in a professional journal for coaches,
Scholastic Coach. In the 1970s he began freelancing for magazines and moved to
Washington DC, where he frequently contributed to
The Washington Post Sunday Magazine and was Washington editor of the now-defunct
Dun's Review and
Dun's Business Month.
Literary works
His first book, The Ambition and the Power: A True Story of Washington, appeared in 1989 and explored the operation of the
New York Times
named it one of the eleven best books ever written on Congress and Washington.
With Steven Rosenberg, MD, PhD, chief of the Surgery Branch at the National Cancer Institute and a pioneer in the development of "immunotherapy" for cancer—stimulating the immune system to attack cancer—Barry co-authored his second book, The Transformed Cell: Unlocking the Mysteries of Cancer, which was published in 12 languages.
Barry's 1997 book Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America appeared on the
U.S. National Academies of Science
in its invitation to give the 2006 Abel Wolman Distinguished Lecture on Water Resources; he is the only non-scientist ever to give that lecture.
His 2004 book , an academic honorary society for public health.
Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul: Church, State, and the Birth of Liberty (2012)
Policymaking
Two of his books involved him directly in policy-making. From January 2007 until October 16, 2013, he was a member of the
Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority - East (SLFPAE), the levee board responsible for protecting the
New Orleans metro area on the east bank of the Mississippi River. He has advised the private sector and local, state, national, and international government officials about preparing for another influenza pandemic. He has also both advised officials and taken a direct role in preparing for water-related disasters. A resident of New Orleans, after
Hurricane Katrina he was also named to both the
Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority (SLFPA), which is the levee board overseeing several separate levee districts in the New Orleans area, and the state's
Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, which is responsible for hurricane protection for the entire state.
Recognizing that protecting New Orleans from storm surge required restoring much of coastal Louisiana, which had once served as a buffer between the city and the ocean and 2,000 square miles of which had disappeared, he proposed to the levee board that it file a lawsuit against oils companies responsible for a significant amount of the damage. His colleagues agreed and on July 24, 2013, SLFPAE filed a lawsuit against
Shell,
Chevron and 94 other oil, gas, and pipeline companies for their role in damage to
Louisiana's coast. Barry was the chief architect of this suit, and was the authority's spokesperson on it. Governor
Bobby Jindal immediately demanded SLFPAE withdraw the lawsuit. The board was created after
Hurricane Katrina by a constitutional amendment, and its members—unlike members of other levee boards in the state—cannot be removed by the governor without cause. However, when Barry's term on the board expired, Jindal did not reappoint him. The board continues to support the suit, and Barry continues to argue for it, speaking at Rotary Clubs and similar groups throughout Louisiana to generate political support. Nonetheless, in June 2014 the state legislature passed a bill attempting to retroactively kill the lawsuit. Despite a veto urged by Attorney General
Buddy Caldwell and 116 law school professors who warned that the bill undermined some of the state's claims against BP for the 2010 spill—and the opinion that the bill did not even kill the lawsuit—Jindal signed the bill, which became Act 544. In August 2014, attorneys for the board filed a motion seeking a partial summary judgment arguing that Act 544 does not apply to the flood authority and that the law is unconstitutional. A state court ruled that flood authority lawyers were correct on both counts; in a separate action, a federal district court dismissed the case. Both lower court rulings are now on appeal, one in the state Supreme Court and one at the federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal.
Other work
Barry has written for The New York Times, also awarded him an honorary doctorate.
References
External links
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