James Fallows is a distinguished American journalist, author and media commentator. As a national correspondent for The Atlantic for 40 years, he has been based in Seattle, Berkeley, Austin, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai, Beijing, and now Washington D.C. In addition to his career at The Atlantic, Fallows spent two years as the editor of U.S. News & World Report, two years as Jimmy Carter’s chief speechwriter and six months as a program designer at Microsoft.
Fallows’ writing on politics and culture has earned him widespread recognition. He has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award five times, and won in 2003 for “The Fifty-First State?” an article predicting the consequences of invading Iraq. He received the National Book Award for his book National Defense, and a New York Emmy Award for the documentary series Doing Business in China.
Fallows has authored many influential books including Blind Into Baghdad, Postcards From Tomorrow Square, and Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy. His most recent, China Airborne, demonstrates China’s ambitions for modernization and innovation through the lens of its rapidly growing market for Chinese airlines.
Currently Chair in U.S. Media at the U.S. Studies Center at the University of Sydney, Fallows is the founding chairman of the New American Foundation. As a Rhodes scholar, he earned his graduate degree in economics from Oxford, and his undergraduate degree in American history and literature from Harvard.
