Evan Thomas

For the Welsh academic, see Evan Thomas (priest). For the Welsh footballer, see Evan Thomas (rugby league).

Evan Thomas participates in a discussion with US Navy leaders, January 29, 2010

Evan Welling Thomas III (born 25 April 1951) is an American journalist and author. He currently teaches journalism at Princeton University.

Life and career

Thomas was born in Huntington, New York, and was raised in Cold Spring Harbor, New York. A graduate of Phillips Academy, Harvard University, and the University of Virginia School of Law, since 1991 he has been the assistant managing editor at Newsweek. He formerly worked for TIME. Thomas began his reporting career at The Bergen Record in New Jersey. He won his numerous journalism awards, including the National Magazine Award in 1998 for Newsweek’s coverage of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and the 2009 Clarion Award.

Thomas is a regular panelist on the weekly public affairs TV show "Inside Washington".

On June 5, 2009, while being interviewed by Chris Matthews on Hardball with Chris Matthews, Thomas provoked controversy by stating that Barack Obama was "sort of God." In response to criticism of this comment, Thomas responded with the following:

What I said was: "In a way, Obama's standing above the country, above -- above the world, a sort of god." I was not being literal. During a discussion about presidential rhetoric, I was comparing Ronald Reagan's patriotic appeals with Obama's attempt to transcend parochialism.

Family

He is the son of Anna Davis (née Robins) and Evan Welling Thomas II, an editor who worked for HarperCollins and W. W. Norton & Company. His grandfather, Norman Thomas, was a six-time Presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America.

He is married, and he and his wife, an attorney, are the parents of two daughters. They live in Washington, D.C.

Works

• Ike's Bluff: President Eisenhower's Secret Battle to Save the World (Little, Brown and Company, 2012)
• Robert Kennedy: The Empathetic Leader in Walter Isaacson (ed.) Profiles in Leadership (W. W. Norton & Company, 2011)
• The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the Rush to Empire, 1898, Little, Brown and Company, 2010, ISBN 978-0-316-00409-1
• A Long Time Coming: The Inspiring, Combative 2008 Campaign and the Historic Election of Barack Obama, PublicAffairs, 2009, ISBN 9781586486075
• Sea of Thunder: Four Naval Commanders and the Last Sea War, Simon and Schuster, 2007, ISBN 9780743252225
• John Paul Jones: Sailor, Hero, Father of the American Navy, Simon and Schuster, 2004, ISBN 978-0-7432-5804-3
• Robert Kennedy: His Life, Simon & Schuster, 2000, ISBN 978-0-684-83480-1
• Back from the dead: how Clinton survived the Republican revolution, Atlantic Monthly Press, 1997, ISBN 978-0-87113-689-3
• The Very Best Men: The Early Years of the CIA, Simon and Schuster, 1996, ISBN 978-0-684-82538-0
• The Man to See: The Life of Edward Bennett Williams Simon and Schuster, 1992, ISBN 978-0-671-79211-4
• The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made, Walter Isaacson, Evan Thomas, Simon and Schuster, 1986; Simon and Schuster, 1997, ISBN 978-0-684-83771-0

See also

• Norman Thomas (grandfather)

External links

• Booknotes interview with Thomas on The Very Best Men: Four Who Dared, December 17, 1995.
• C-SPAN Q&A interview with Thomas about Ike's Bluff, October 14, 2012