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John Derbyshire (born 3 June 1945) is a British-born American far-right political commentator, writer, journalist and computer programmer. He was once known as a paleoconservative, until he was fired from the '' National Review'' in 2012 for writing an article for an online magazine that was widely viewed as racist. He now holds a staff position at the
white supremacist White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White s ...
website VDARE. In the article that caused his firing, Derbyshire suggested that white and Asian parents should talk to their children about the threats posed to their safety by black people. He also recommended that parents tell their children not to live in predominantly black communities. He included the line "If planning a trip to a beach or amusement park at some date, find out whether it is likely to be swamped with blacks on that date." He has also written for the ''New English Review''. His columns cover a broad range of political-cultural topics, including immigration, China, history, mathematics, and race. Derbyshire's 1996 novel ''
Seeing Calvin Coolidge in a Dream ''Seeing Calvin Coolidge in a Dream'' is a 1996 book by John Derbyshire. It was a ''New York Times'' "Notable Book of the Year". Plot A Capraesque yarn of midlife crisis A midlife crisis is a transition of identity and self-confidence that ca ...
'' was a ''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' "Notable Book of the Year". His 2004 non-fiction book '' Prime Obsession'' won the
Mathematical Association of America The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) is a professional society that focuses on mathematics accessible at the undergraduate level. Members include university, college, and high school teachers; graduate and undergraduate students; pure a ...
's inaugural Euler Book Prize. A political book, '' We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism'', was released in September 2009.


Early life

Derbyshire attended the Northampton School for Boys and graduated from
University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...
, of the
University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degr ...
, where he studied mathematics. Before turning to writing full-time, he worked on Wall Street as a computer programmer.


Career


''National Review''

Derbyshire worked as a writer at '' National Review'' until he was terminated in 2012 because of a racist article published in ''
Taki's Magazine ''Taki's Magazine'', called ''Takimag'' for short, is an online magazine of politics and culture published by the Greek paleoconservative commentator and socialite Taki Theodoracopulos and edited by his daughter Mandolyna Theodoracopulos. Initia ...
.'' Derbyshire then worked at VDARE.


Mathematics

Derbyshire's book '' Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics'' was first published in hardcover in 2003 and then paperback in 2004. It focuses on the
Riemann hypothesis In mathematics, the Riemann hypothesis is the conjecture that the Riemann zeta function has its zeros only at the negative even integers and complex numbers with real part . Many consider it to be the most important unsolved problem in p ...
, one of the Millennium Problems. The book is aimed, as Derbyshire puts it in his prologue, "at the intelligent and curious but nonmathematical reader ..." ''Prime Obsession'' explores such topics as complex numbers, field theory, the
prime number theorem In mathematics, the prime number theorem (PNT) describes the asymptotic distribution of the prime numbers among the positive integers. It formalizes the intuitive idea that primes become less common as they become larger by precisely quantifying t ...
, the
zeta function In mathematics, a zeta function is (usually) a function analogous to the original example, the Riemann zeta function : \zeta(s) = \sum_^\infty \frac 1 . Zeta functions include: * Airy zeta function, related to the zeros of the Airy function * ...
, the harmonic series, and others. The biographical sections give relevant information about the lives of mathematicians who worked in these areas, including
Euler Leonhard Euler ( , ; 15 April 170718 September 1783) was a Swiss mathematician, physicist, astronomer, geographer, logician and engineer who founded the studies of graph theory and topology and made pioneering and influential discoveries in ...
, Gauss, Lejeune Dirichlet, Lobachevsky,
Chebyshev Pafnuty Lvovich Chebyshev ( rus, Пафну́тий Льво́вич Чебышёв, p=pɐfˈnutʲɪj ˈlʲvovʲɪtɕ tɕɪbɨˈʂof) ( – ) was a Russian mathematician and considered to be the founding father of Russian mathematics. Chebyshe ...
, Vallée-Poussin, Hadamard, as well as Riemann himself. In 2006,
Joseph Henry Press Joseph Henry Press (JHP) is an American publisher which is an imprint of the National Academies Press, publisher for the United States National Academy of Sciences. The imprint is named after American scientist Joseph Henry. The imprint publishes ...
published another Derbyshire book of popular mathematics: ''Unknown Quantity: A Real And Imaginary History of Algebra''.


Role in ''Way of the Dragon''

Derbyshire had an uncredited role in ''
Way of the Dragon ''The Way of the Dragon'' (, originally released in the United States as ''Return of the Dragon'') is a 1972 Hong Kong martial arts action comedy film written, co-produced and directed by Bruce Lee, who also stars in the lead role. This is Lee' ...
'' (released in the United States as ''Return of the Dragon''), a 1972 martial arts film directed by, and starring,
Bruce Lee Bruce Lee (; born Lee Jun-fan, ; November 27, 1940 – July 20, 1973) was a Hong Kong and American martial artist and actor. He was the founder of Jeet Kune Do, a hybrid martial arts philosophy drawing from different combat disciplines th ...
. Of landing the part, Derbyshire said: "The casting director had obviously just trawled around the low-class guesthouses for unemployed foreigners of a sufficiently thuggish appearance."


Views

Derbyshire writes in general from a small government conservative perspective. He notably ridiculed George W. Bush's "itty-bitty tax cut, paid for by dumping a slew of federal debt on your children and grandchildren," derided Bush as too sure of his religious convictions and for his "rich-kid-ness". He has noted that small-government conservatism is unlikely to ever take hold in the United States (although he is personally sympathetic to it), called for immediate U.S. withdrawal from
Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
(but favoured the invasion), opposed market reforms or any other changes in
Social Security Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifical ...
, supported legal access to abortion, supported
euthanasia Euthanasia (from el, εὐθανασία 'good death': εὖ, ''eu'' 'well, good' + θάνατος, ''thanatos'' 'death') is the practice of intentionally ending life to eliminate pain and suffering. Different countries have different eut ...
in a fairly wide range of circumstances, and suggested that he might (in a time of international crisis) vote for
Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...
as president. Derbyshire wrote about American schooling in his book ''
We Are Doomed ''We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism'' is a 2009 non-fiction book by British-American writer John Derbyshire. He draws upon classical conservatism thinking to argue that modern Western civilization is dying and will eventually fail ...
'', "Education is a vast sea of lies, waste, corruption, crackpot theorizing, and careerist log-rolling." He further argued that people "had better brace ourselves for the catastrophe" coming as a result. Derbyshire once argued that America would be better off if women did not have the right to vote. In 2005, in a monthly column containing a series of miscellaneous musings, he controversially stated that women's physical attractiveness peaks between ages 15 and 20.


Vs ''National Review''

Derbyshire differed from other writers at ''National Review'' magazine on many subjects. For example, Derbyshire supported
Michael Schiavo The Terri Schiavo case was a series of court and legislative actions in the United States from 1998 to 2005, regarding the care of Theresa Marie Schiavo (née Schindler) (; December 3, 1963 – March 31, 2005), a woman in an irreversible ...
's position in the
Terri Schiavo case The Terri Schiavo case was a series of court and legislative actions in the United States from 1998 to 2005, regarding the care of Theresa Marie Schiavo (née Schindler) (; December 3, 1963 – March 31, 2005), a woman in an irreversible ...
. Derbyshire's views on the Schiavo case attracted criticism from colleagues such as
Ramesh Ponnuru Ramesh Ponnuru (; born August 16, 1974) is an American conservative thinker, political pundit, and journalist. He has been a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute since 2012. He is the editor of ''National Review'' magazine, a col ...
. The Derbyshire–Ponnuru dispute arose again over Ponnuru's 2006 book ''
The Party of Death ''The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life'' is a book authored by Ramesh Ponnuru. The hardcover edition, published by Regnery Publishing, was released on April 24, 2006 and consists of 320 pages. ...
''. Derbyshire reviewed the book harshly in the ''New English Review'', and Ponnuru replied on ''National Review Online''. Though Derbyshire broadly agreed with other writers at ''National Review Online'' on immigration, he encountered strong opposition from former NRO blogger
John Podhoretz John Mordecai Podhoretz (; born April 18, 1961) is an American writer. He is the editor of ''Commentary'' magazine, a columnist for the '' New York Post'', the author of several books on politics, and a former speechwriter for Presidents Rona ...
, who described Derbyshire's comments on restricting immigration to maintain "ethnic balance" in severe terms: "But maintaining 'ethnic balance' is not fine. It is chillingly, horrifyingly not fine." In response, fellow Corner contributor Jonah Goldberg, who described himself as philosophically "in the middle" of the two, noted:
I should say that I think JPod is getting too hung up on the phrase "ethnic balance" as a codeword for all sorts of unlovely things. It seems to me that if you're going to sit down and have any immigration policy at all, it's unavoidable that you're going to address the issue of ethnic balance in one way or another, no matter what you call it. Ultimately, you have to choose where people come from if you have an immigration policy, even if you emphasize other factors like skills or family unification. So you can either look at it directly or you can skirt around it. But you can't avoid it.


Personal life

In 1986 Derbyshire married Lynette Rose, or Rosie, née Qi ( ; Qi Hongmei), who was raised in China and later became a naturalised U.S. citizen. They have two children, a daughter and a son. He lives on
Long Island, New York Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United States and the 18t ...
. Derbyshire was, for a brief time, an illegal immigrant. He often recounted observations from his personal life in his former monthly column, "The Straggler," in ''National Review''. Derbyshire said of his family, "our two children are, as they are already tired of being told, half English coal miner, half Chinese
peasant A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasa ...
, 100 percent American." In early 2012, he underwent treatment for chronic lymphocytic leukaemia.


Published works

* ''
Seeing Calvin Coolidge in a Dream ''Seeing Calvin Coolidge in a Dream'' is a 1996 book by John Derbyshire. It was a ''New York Times'' "Notable Book of the Year". Plot A Capraesque yarn of midlife crisis A midlife crisis is a transition of identity and self-confidence that ca ...
'' (St. Martin's Griffin, 1997) * '' Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics'' (Plume Books, 2003) * ''Unknown Quantity: A Real And Imaginary History of Algebra'' (Joseph Henry Press, 2006) * '' We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism'' (Crown Forum, 2009) , * ''From the Dissident Right'' (Vdare Books, 2013) He has also written numerous articles for various publications, including '' National Review'', '' The New Criterion'', ''
The American Conservative ''The American Conservative'' (''TAC'') is a magazine published by the American Ideas Institute which was founded in 2002. Originally published twice a month, it was reduced to monthly publication in August 2009, and since February 2013, it has ...
'' and ''
The Washington Times ''The Washington Times'' is an American conservative daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., that covers general interest topics with a particular emphasis on national politics. Its broadsheet daily edition is distributed throughou ...
''. Derbyshire records a weekly
podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosin ...
called "Radio Derb," in which he comments on current events. The podcast was hosted on the ''National Review'' website before being moved to ''
Taki's Magazine ''Taki's Magazine'', called ''Takimag'' for short, is an online magazine of politics and culture published by the Greek paleoconservative commentator and socialite Taki Theodoracopulos and edited by his daughter Mandolyna Theodoracopulos. Initia ...
''. It is now hosted on VDARE.


References


External links


John Derbyshire's home page, with archive of web and print articles


Interviews


Radio Free Indiana: Interview with John Derbyshire
on The Voice of Reason Broadcast Network * {{DEFAULTSORT:Derbyshire, John 1945 births Alt-right writers Alumni of University College London American columnists American computer programmers American male non-fiction writers American podcasters American political commentators American political writers American science writers American white supremacists British emigrants to the United States Living people Mathematics popularizers National Review people Old Right (United States) Paleoconservatism People educated at Northampton School for Boys People from Long Island Writers from London Writers from New York (state)