George Packer

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George Packer (born August 13, 1960) is an American journalist, novelist and playwright.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Packer's parents, Nancy Packer and Herbert Packer, were both academics at Stanford University; his maternal grandfather was George Huddleston, a congressman from Alabama.[1] His sister, Ann Packer, is also a writer. Packer graduated from Yale College, where he lived in Calhoun College, in 1982,[2] and served in the Peace Corps in Togo.[3] His essays and articles have appeared in The Nation, World Affairs, Harper's, The New York Times, among other publications. Packer is a columnist for Mother Jones and has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since May 2003[4].

Packer is a Holtzbrinck Fellow Class of Fall 2009 at the American Academy in Berlin. The title of his project there is Enlightenment and War.[5]

Packer's most recent book, The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq, analyzes the events that led to the 2003 invasion of Iraq and reports on subsequent developments in that country, largely based on interviews with ordinary Iraqis. Packer supported the Iraq War in the run-up to the invasion. In his book, The Assassins' Gate, Packer characterizes the anti-war movement as fringe, knee-jerk in its pacifism and lacking in "understanding" of the region. This was consistent with Packer's pre-war condemnation of the anti-war movement being part and parcel with a "doctrinaire left" that opposes any and all American foreign policy. Or as Packer put it in another piece, the antiwar movement was "controlled by the furthest reaches of the American left" - a conclusion supported by reference to slogans and signs at some anti-war rallies[citation needed].

Critics, however, note that the Iraq War was also condemned not just by the left, but by a host of hardnosed, right-of-center realists, such as Brent Scowcroft, Stephen Walt, and others[who?]Pope John Paul II. Packer blames Kanan Makiya for having misled him into supporting the war in Iraq[citation needed].

He was a finalist for the 2004 Michael Kelly Award.

[edit] Books

  • The Village of Waiting (1988). New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (1st Farrar edition, 2001). Pb. ISBN 0-374-52780-6
  • The Half Man (1991). Random House ISBN 0-394-58192-X
  • Central Square (1998). Graywolf Press ISBN 1-55597-277-2
  • Blood of the Liberals (2000). Farrar, Straus and Giroux ISBN 0-374-25142-8
  • The Fight is for Democracy: Winning the War of Ideas in America and the World (2003, as editor). Harper Perennial. Pb. ISBN 0-06-053249-1
  • The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq (2005) Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2005 ISBN 0-374-29963-3
  • Betrayed: A Play (2008) Faber & Faber

[edit] External links

[edit] Magazine Articles About the Iraq War

[edit] Other Topics

[edit] References

  1. ^ Columbia Journalism Review September 2005, http://www.cjr.org/issues/2005/5/glenn.asp.
  2. ^ 1982 Yale Banner p. 377.
  3. ^ Columbia Journalism Review op. cit.
  4. ^ "Finalist: George Packer (Biography)". The Michael Kelly Award. http://kellyaward.com/mk_award_popup/packer_g.html. 
  5. ^ "George Packer" American Academy in Berlin website
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