Benjamin Barber

Benjamin R. Barber is an American political theorist and author maybe best known for his 1996 bestseller, Jihad vs. McWorld. Barber kept the positions of Gershon and Carol Kekst Professor of Civil Society and Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park School of Public Policy, and he is Walt Whitman Professor Emeritus at Rutgers University; he is presently president and director with the Interdependence Movement and also the NGO “CivWorld” at Demos, and its annual Interdependence Day event on September 12. He is a known senior fellow at Demos. As a political theorist, Barber argues to get a renewed concentrate on civil society and engaged citizenship as tools for creating efficient democracy, especially within the post-Cold War world. His present function concentrates on global democratic governance and the relationship between the arts and democracy. Benjamin Barber has become a Senior Fellow in the USC Center on Public Diplomacy since 2005. He was an outside adviser to President Bill Clinton, a foreign policy adviser to Howard Dean’s 2004 Presidential campaign tankless water heaters and is constantly on the counsel political leaders in America and abroad. Barber was educated at Grinnell College (B.A., 1960) and Harvard University (M.A., 1963; Ph.D., 1966), after earning certificates at Albert Schweitzer College (1959) and the London School of Economics (1957). According to Foreign Policy Barber “was among a small group of democracy advocates and public intellectuals… operating under contract with the Monitor Group consulting firm to interact with Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi on problems of democracy and civil society”. Barber says, “we thought—and I think Monitor thought—it was an opportunity work at internal reform.” The son of theater people, he has also been active as a playwright, lyricist (libretto for George Quincy’s opera House and also the River) and film-maker (The Struggle for Democracy, with Patrick Watson; Music Inn, with Ben Barenholtz). Barber’s honors include a knighthood from the French Government (Palmes Academiques/Chevalier) (2001), the Berlin Prize of the American Academy in Berlin (2001) and the John Dewey Award (2003). He has also been awarded Guggenheim, metal detector Fulbright, and Social Science Analysis Fellowships, honorary doctorates from Grinnell College, Monmouth University and Connecticut College, and has held the chair of American Civilization at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales in Paris. He appears often on television, which includes the Tavis Smiley Show, CNN, Bill Moyers Journal, Fox & Friends, The O’Reilly Factor, Charlie Rose, John McLaughlin’s One on One, C-Span and GRITtv. With Patrick Watson he wrote the prize-winning ten-part PBS/BBC series The Struggle for Democracy and brought to the British series Greek Fire. He wrote and narrated the film Music Inn, featured at the Tribeca and Munich film festivals. His plays have been created off-Broadway and at regional theaters, while his song lyrics for British tenor Martin Greatest show up on the EMI concept album Knight on the Road. He wrote the libretto for George Quincy’s opera House and also the River, produced by Encompass in New York. He has combined a career as a distinguished scholar and political theorist with a life of practical commitment to democratic civic practices and also the arts. He is an experienced educational and political consultant, public microdermabrasion machines speaker, fund raiser, administrator, and television and theater writer/producer. As a scholar with a Ph.D. in government from Harvard University, he has also taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Haverford College, Princeton University, the City University of New York, Essex University (UK) and the Ecoles des Hautes Etudes en sciences sociales in Paris; he has won Guggenheim, Fulbright and American Council of Learned Society fellowships and was awarded an honorary doctor of laws from Grinnell College. In academic administration. He has, for the last ten years been director with the Walt Whitman Center for the Culture and Politics of Democracy at Rutgers University, where he also supports the Walt Whitman Chair of Political Science. In his capacity as director, Barber oversees an administrative staff of eight and the other fifteen research and project personnel which includes a half dozen graduate video camera stabilizer students. As a Political Advisor and Civic Consultant, He has served as a counselor to dozens of organizations and agencies concerned with citizenship, civil society, community service, education and democracy. He is really a frequent casual advisor to President Bill Clinton, and has led to major speeches. He has also consulted with German President Roman Herzog, the Mendes-France Center in Paris (parti socialist), the Political Academy (Volkspartei) in Vienna, and is on the German Land hard money lenders of Baden-Wurttemburg’s Citizenship Council. He has written papers and lectured for the U.S. Information Agency and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and counselled the Corporation for National and Community Service. He speaks often in North America and Europe (he speaks German and French fluently) where a lot of his books and articles have come out in translation. For Television and the Theatre, Barber has written and directed in areas associated to his dedication to democratic practice. With Patrick Watson he authored and edited for television the prize-winning ten-part PBS/CBC series The Struggle for Democracy.