Position: Professor

Campus Affiliation: Graduate Center |School of Journalism

Peter Beinart is Professor of Journalism and Political Science at the City University of New York. He is also a Contributing Opinion Writer at The New York Times, a CNN Political Commentator, Editor-at-Large of Jewish Currents and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Foundation for Middle East Peace. He writes the Beinart Notebook newsletter on Substack.Com

His first book, The Good Fight, was published by HarperCollins in 2006.  His second book, The Icarus Syndrome, was published by HarperCollins in 2010. His third, The Crisis of Zionism, was published by Times Books in 2012.

Beinart has written for the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, the Boston Globe, the Atlantic, Newsweek, Slate, Reader’s Digest, Die Zeit, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and Polity: the Journal of the Northeastern Political Science Studies Association.  The Week magazine named him columnist of the year for 2004. In 2005, he gave the Theodore H. White lecture at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

He has appeared on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” “Charlie Rose,” “Meet the Press,” “The Colbert Report” and many other television programs.

Beinart graduated from Yale University, winning a Rhodes scholarship for graduate study at Oxford University.  After graduating from University College, Oxford, Beinart became The New Republic’s managing editor in 1995.  He became senior editor in 1997, and from 1999 to 2006 served as the magazine’s Editor.

Books

   The Crisis of Zionism (Henry Holt & Company, 2012)

In Israel, the deepening occupation of the West Bank is putting Israeli democracy at risk. And in the United States, the refusal of major Jewish organizations to defend democracy in the Jewish state is alienating many young liberal Jews from Zionism itself. In The Crisis of Zionism, Peter Beinart lays out in chilling detail the looming danger to Israeli democracy and the American Jewish establishment’s refusal to confront it. And he renders a fascinating, groundbreaking portrait of the two leaders at the center of the crisis: Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu. Beinart offers provocative proposals for how the relationship between American Jews and Israel must change, and an eloquent and moving appeal for American Jews to defend the dream of a democratic Jewish state before it is too late.

 The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris (HarperCollins, 2010)

“Why do we succumb to hubris? Peter Beinart has written a highly intelligent and wonderfully readable book that answers the question by looking at a century of American foreign policy. As with everything Beinart writes, it is lucid, thoughtful and strikingly honest.” — Fareed Zakaria, author of The Post-American World
“Peter Beinart has written a vivid, empathetic, and convincing history of the men and ideas that have shaped the ambitions of American foreign policy during the last century—a story in which human fallibility and idealism flow together. The story continues, of course, and so his book is not only timely; it is indispensible.” — Steve Coll, author of Ghost Wars
Peter Beinart, one of the nation’s leading political writers, offers a provocative and strikingly original account of American hubris throughout history—and how we learn from the tragedies that result.

  The Good Fight – Why Liberals – and Only Liberals – Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again (2006)

In this passionate, provocative book, Peter Beinart offers a bold new vision and sounds the call for liberals to revive the spirit that once swept America and inspired the world.