David Rieff
Encyclopedia
David Rieff (ˈriːf; born September 28, 1952, in Boston
, Massachusetts
) is an American polemicist and pundit. His books have focused on issues of immigration, international conflict, and humanitarianism. He has published numerous articles in The New York Times
, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post
, The Wall Street Journal
, Le Monde
, El Pais, The New Republic
, World Affairs
, Harper's, The Atlantic Monthly
, Foreign Affairs
, The Nation, and other publications.
. His father, whom Sontag married in her teens and divorced in her 20s, was Philip Rieff
, author of Freud: The Mind of the Moralist.
Rieff was educated at the Lycée Français de New York
and attended Amherst College
as a member of the class of 1974, where he studied with Benjamin DeMott
. He eventually dropped out and went through a vagabond period, during which he labored for the radical Catholic priest Ivan Illich
in Mexico and worked as a cab driver. He finally ended up at Princeton University
, where he graduated with an A.B. in 1978, and was a Senior Editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux
from 1978 to 1989, working with such authors as Joseph Brodsky
, Elias Canetti
, Carlos Fuentes
, Alberto Moravia
, Les Murray
, Philip Roth
, Mario Vargas Llosa
, and Marguerite Yourcenar
.
He is a Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute
at the New School for Social Research, a Fellow at the New York Institute for the Humanities
at New York University
, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations
, a board member of the Arms Division of Human Rights Watch
, of the Central Eurasia Project of the Open Society Institute
and of Independent Diplomat
.
Rieff has expressed strong disapproval of the American policies and actions that both informed and followed the invasion of Iraq.
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
) is an American polemicist and pundit. His books have focused on issues of immigration, international conflict, and humanitarianism. He has published numerous articles in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
, The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
, Le Monde
Le Monde
Le Monde is a French daily evening newspaper owned by La Vie-Le Monde Group and edited in Paris. It is one of two French newspapers of record, and has generally been well respected since its first edition under founder Hubert Beuve-Méry on 19 December 1944...
, El Pais, The New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
, World Affairs
World Affairs (journal)
World Affairs is a bimonthly magazine covering international relations. It is the official journal of the American Peace Society. The magazine has been published since 1837 and was re-launched in January 2008 as a new publication. Each issue contains articles offering diverse perspectives on global...
, Harper's, The Atlantic Monthly
The Atlantic Monthly
The Atlantic is an American magazine founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1857. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine. It quickly achieved a national reputation, which it held for more than a century. It was important for recognizing and publishing new writers and poets,...
, Foreign Affairs
Foreign Affairs
Foreign Affairs is an American magazine and website on international relations and U.S. foreign policy published since 1922 by the Council on Foreign Relations six times annually...
, The Nation, and other publications.
Biography
Rieff is the only child of Susan SontagSusan Sontag
Susan Sontag was an American author, literary theorist, feminist and political activist whose works include On Photography and Against Interpretation.-Life:...
. His father, whom Sontag married in her teens and divorced in her 20s, was Philip Rieff
Philip Rieff
Philip Rieff was an American sociologist and cultural critic, who taught sociology at the University of Pennsylvania from 1961 until 1992. He was the author of a number of books on Sigmund Freud and his legacy, including Freud: The Mind of the Moralist and The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of...
, author of Freud: The Mind of the Moralist.
Rieff was educated at the Lycée Français de New York
Lycée Français de New York
The Lycée Français de New York , literally The French High School of New York, is an exclusive French-medium school for K-12 students based in Manhattan, New York which follows the French curriculum of study and allows students to study for the French general Baccalauréat, the international option...
and attended Amherst College
Amherst College
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...
as a member of the class of 1974, where he studied with Benjamin DeMott
Benjamin DeMott
Professor Benjamin Haile DeMott was an American writer, scholar, and cultural critic...
. He eventually dropped out and went through a vagabond period, during which he labored for the radical Catholic priest Ivan Illich
Ivan Illich
Ivan Illich was an Austrian philosopher, Roman Catholic priest, and "maverick social critic" of the institutions of contemporary western culture and their effects on the provenance and practice of education, medicine, work, energy use, transportation, and economic development.- Personal life...
in Mexico and worked as a cab driver. He finally ended up at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, where he graduated with an A.B. in 1978, and was a Senior Editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Farrar, Straus and Giroux is an American book publishing company, founded in 1946 by Roger W. Straus, Jr. and John C. Farrar. Known primarily as Farrar, Straus in its first decade of existence, the company was renamed several times, including Farrar, Straus and Young and Farrar, Straus and Cudahy...
from 1978 to 1989, working with such authors as Joseph Brodsky
Joseph Brodsky
Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky , was a Russian poet and essayist.In 1964, 23-year-old Brodsky was arrested and charged with the crime of "social parasitism" He was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1972 and settled in America with the help of W. H. Auden and other supporters...
, Elias Canetti
Elias Canetti
Elias Canetti was a Bulgarian-born modernist novelist, playwright, memoirist, and non-fiction writer. He wrote in German and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981, "for writings marked by a broad outlook, a wealth of ideas and artistic power".-Life:...
, Carlos Fuentes
Carlos Fuentes
Carlos Fuentes Macías is a Mexican writer and one of the best-known living novelists and essayists in the Spanish-speaking world. He has influenced contemporary Latin American literature, and his works have been widely translated into English and other languages.-Biography:Fuentes was born in...
, Alberto Moravia
Alberto Moravia
Alberto Moravia, born Alberto Pincherle was an Italian novelist and journalist. His novels explored matters of modern sexuality, social alienation, and existentialism....
, Les Murray
Les Murray (poet)
Leslie Allan Murray, AO , known as Les Murray, is an Australian poet, anthologist and critic. His career spans over forty years, and he has published nearly 30 volumes of poetry, as well as two verse novels and collections of his prose writings...
, Philip Roth
Philip Roth
Philip Milton Roth is an American novelist. He gained fame with the 1959 novella Goodbye, Columbus, an irreverent and humorous portrait of Jewish-American life that earned him a National Book Award...
, Mario Vargas Llosa
Mario Vargas Llosa
Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquis of Vargas Llosa is a Peruvian-Spanish writer, politician, journalist, essayist, and Nobel Prize laureate. Vargas Llosa is one of Latin America's most significant novelists and essayists, and one of the leading authors of his generation...
, and Marguerite Yourcenar
Marguerite Yourcenar
Marguerite Yourcenar was a Belgian-born French novelist and essayist. Winner of the Prix Femina and the Erasmus Prize, she was the first woman elected to the Académie française, in 1980, and the seventeenth person to occupy Seat 3.-Biography:Yourcenar was born Marguerite Antoinette Jeanne Marie...
.
He is a Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute
World Policy Institute
The World Policy Institute, a non-partisan policy institute which claims to develop policies that require a progressive ideology. WPI focuses on cooperative policies in order to achieve : an inclusive and sustainable global market economy, engaged global civic participation and effective...
at the New School for Social Research, a Fellow at the New York Institute for the Humanities
New York Institute for the Humanities
The New York Institute for the Humanities is an academic organisation affiliated with New York University, founded by Richard Sennett in 1976 to promote the exchange of ideas between academics, professionals and the general public. The NYIH regularly holds seminars open to the public, as well as...
at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations
Council on Foreign Relations
The Council on Foreign Relations is an American nonprofit nonpartisan membership organization, publisher, and think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs...
, a board member of the Arms Division of Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...
, of the Central Eurasia Project of the Open Society Institute
Open Society Institute
The Open Society Institute , renamed in 2011 to Open Society Foundations, is a private operating and grantmaking foundation started by George Soros, aimed to shape public policy to promote democratic governance, human rights, and economic, legal, and social reform...
and of Independent Diplomat
Independent Diplomat
Independent Diplomat is a non-profit organisation founded in 2004 by former British diplomat Carne Ross to give advice and assistance in diplomatic strategy and technique to governments and political groups - such as providing 'freelance' diplomats to unrecognised governments Independent Diplomat...
.
Rieff has expressed strong disapproval of the American policies and actions that both informed and followed the invasion of Iraq.
Books
- Texas Boots (with Sharon Delano) (Studio/Penguin, 1981)
- Going to Miami: Tourists, Exiles and Refugees in the New America (Little, Brown, 1987)
- Los Angeles: Capital of the Third World (Simon & Schuster, 1991)
- The Exile: Cuba in the Heart of Miami (Simon & Schuster, 1993)
- Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the Failure of the West (Simon & Schuster, 1995)
- Crimes of War: What the Public Should KnowCrimes of WarCrimes of War: What the Public Should Know is a 1999 reference book edited by Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Roy Gutman and David Rieff that offers a compendium of more than 150 entries of articles and photographs that broadly define "international humanitarian law", a subject that involves most...
(co-editor, with Roy GutmanRoy GutmanRoy Gutman is an American journalist and author.In 1966, Gutman graduated from Haverford College with a major in History. In 1968, Gutman graduated from the London School of Economics with a masters degree in International Relations.Roy Gutman joined Newsday in January 1982 and served for eight...
) (W. W. Norton, 1999) - A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis (Simon & Schuster, 2003)
- At the Point of a Gun: Democratic Dreams and Armed Intervention (Simon & Schuster, 2005)
- Swimming in a Sea of Death: A Son's Memoir (Simon & Schuster, 2008)
- Reborn: Journals & Notebooks, 1947-1963 (editor) (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. 2009)
Commentary
- Without Exception: The Same Old Song, World AffairsWorld Affairs (journal)World Affairs is a bimonthly magazine covering international relations. It is the official journal of the American Peace Society. The magazine has been published since 1837 and was re-launched in January 2008 as a new publication. Each issue contains articles offering diverse perspectives on global...
- PBS Frontline interview with Rieff (online only) (March 25, 2003)
- Curtis Bowman commentary on Rieff opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal (April 7, 2005)
- Foreign Affairs review of At the Point of a Gun (March/April 2005)
- Archive of writings by David Rieff for The Nation.
External links
- Transcript of interview with Ramona KovalRamona KovalRamona Koval is an Australian broadcaster, writer and journalist.Her parents were Yiddish-speaking survivors of the Holocaust who arrived in Melbourne from Poland in 1950....
of The Book ShowThe Book ShowThe Book Show is an Australian ABC radio program for the discussion of everything relating to the written word. It is broadcast live around Australia on Radio National with a daily weekday morning show which is then replayed nightly and also has a Sunday evening show. The show is hosted by Ramona...
, ABC Radio National, live at the Sydney Writers' Festival, 23 May 2008 - Radio interview on Bookworm, discussing Swimming in a Sea of Death: A Son's Memoir
- Interview with David Rieff, Barcelona MetropolisBarcelona MetropolisBarcelona Metrópolis is a magazine of urban information and thought dedicated to monitoring the evolution of the city of Barcelona.Barcelona...
, Summer, 2009.