Greg Grandin (born 1962) is a professor of history at
Yale University. He previously taught at
New York University. He is author of a number of books, including ''
Fordlândia
Fordlândia (, ''Ford-land'') is a district and adjacent area of in the city of Aveiro, in the Brazilian state of Pará. It is located on the east banks of the Tapajós river roughly south of the city of Santarém.
It was established by ...
: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City'', which was a finalist for the
Pulitzer Prize for History, as well as for the
National Book Award and a
National Book Critics Circle Award. A more recent book, entitled, ''Who Is
Rigoberta Menchú
Rigoberta Menchú Tum (; born 9 January 1959) is a K'iche' Guatemalan human rights activist, feminist, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Menchú has dedicated her life to publicizing the rights of Guatemala's Indigenous peoples during and after ...
?'', focuses on the treatment of the Guatemalan
Nobel Peace Prize winner. His 2014 book, ''The Empire of Necessity: Slavery, Freedom, and Deception in the New World,'' is a study of the factual basis for the novella ''
Benito Cereno
''Benito Cereno'' is a novella by Herman Melville, a fictionalized account about the revolt on a Spanish slave ship captained by Don Benito Cereno, first published in three installments in '' Putnam's Monthly'' in 1855. The tale, slightly revis ...
'' by
Herman Melville
Herman Melville ( born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are ''Moby-Dick'' (1851); ''Typee'' (1846), a r ...
.
''Fordlandia'' was named one of the best books of the year by ''The
New York Times'', ''
The New Yorker'';
NPR
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...
; ''The
Boston Globe
''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
''; ''
San Francisco Chronicle''; and the ''
Chicago Tribune''.
In 2020, Grandin was awarded a
Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction
The Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are awarded annually for the "Letters, Drama, and Music" category. The award is given to a nonfiction book written by an American author and published duri ...
for ''
The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America''.
Biography
Grandin received a
B.A.
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...
from
Brooklyn College
, mottoeng = Nothing without great effort
, established =
, parent = CUNY
, type = Public university
, endowment = $98.0 million (2019)
, budget = $123.96 m ...
in 1992 and a
Ph.D.
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...
from Yale University in 1999.
He won the
Latin American Studies Association
The Latin American Studies Association (LASA) is the largest association for scholars of Latin American studies. Founded in 1966, it has over 12,000 members, 45 percent of whom reside outside the United States (36 percent in Latin America and the C ...
's Bryce Wood Award for the best book published in any discipline on
Latin America for ''Blood of Guatemala: A History of Race and Nation''.
Eric Hobsbawm called ''The Last Colonial Massacre'' a "remarkable and extremely well-written work" that
is about more than the dark history of Guatemala and the Cold War in Latin America. It is about how common people discover politics. It is about the roots of democracy and those of genocide. It is about the hopes and defeats of the twentieth-century left. I could not put this book down.
Grandin has published widely on
US foreign policy, the
Cold War, and Latin American politics in ''
The Nation'', ''The New York Times'', ''
Harpers
Harpers may refer to:
* Harpers, popular misnomer for ''Harper's Magazine'', American monthly magazine
* ''Harper's Bazaar'', monthly American fashion magazine
* '' Harpers Wine & Spirit'', formerly ''Harpers Magazine'' (since 1878), British trad ...
'', and the ''
London Review of Books''. He has appeared on the ''
Charlie Rose Show
''Charlie Rose'' (also known as ''The Charlie Rose Show'') is an American television interview and talk show, with Charlie Rose as executive producer, executive editor, and host. The show was syndicated on PBS from 1991 until 2017 and is owned ...
'' and has interviewed
Naomi Klein and
Hugo Chávez
Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (; 28 July 1954 – 5 March 2013) was a Venezuelan politician who was president of Venezuela from 1999 until his death in 2013, except for a brief period in 2002. Chávez was also leader of the Fifth Republ ...
.
After the death of Chávez, Grandin published a lengthy obituary in ''The Nation'', opining that "the biggest problem Venezuela faced during his rule was not that Chávez was authoritarian but that he wasn't authoritarian enough."
In the summer of 2009, he reported from
Honduras on
that country's coup, appearing a number of times on ''
Democracy Now!'' and Grit TV and writing a series of reports in ''The Nation'' and elsewhere on the consequences of the
overthrow
Overthrow may refer to:
* Overthrow, a change in government, often achieved by force or through a coup d'état.
**The 5th October Overthrow, or Bulldozer Revolution, the events of 2000 that led to the downfall of Slobodan Milošević in the forme ...
of Honduran president
Manuel Zelaya
José Manuel Zelaya Rosales (born 20 September 1952) Encyclopædia BritannicaManuel Zelaya/ref> is a Honduran politician who was President of Honduras from 27 January 2006 until 28 June 2009, and who since January 2022 serves as the first Fi ...
.
Grandin worked as a consultant with the
Historical Clarification Commission In 1994 Guatemala's Commission for Historical Clarification - La Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico (CEH) - was created as a response to the thousands of atrocities and human rights violations committed during the decades long civil war th ...
(Spanish: Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico, or CEH), the Guatemalan truth commission, and has written a number of articles on its methodology, including its
genocide ruling and its use of historical analysis.
Grandin was elected to the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
in April 2010.
Selected works
Author
*
*
*
*
*''Who Is Rigoberta Menchu?'', Verso, 2011,
* ''The Empire of Necessity: Slavery, Freedom, and Deception in the New World'', Metropolitan Books, 2014,
* ''Kissinger's Shadow: The Long Reach of America's Most Controversial Statesman'', Metropolitan Books, 2015,
* "The Strange Career of American Exceptionalism", ''
The Nation'', January 2/9, 2017, pp. 22–27.
*''The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America'', Metropolitan Books, 2019,
Editor
*
*
References
External links
Greg Grandin website
Greg Grandin articles for''
The Nation'
*
Appearanceson ''
Democracy Now!''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grandin, Greg
Latin Americanists
Historians of Latin America
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
1962 births
Living people
New York University faculty
Brooklyn College alumni
Yale University alumni
The Nation (U.S. magazine) people
Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction winners
Bancroft Prize winners