Professional Affiliation

Author and columnist for The New Yorker

Expert Bio

Summary

Robin Wright, a USIP-Wilson Center Distinguished Fellow, is one of the country’s foremost authorities on the Middle East, Islamic extremism, Iran, and political and military dynamics in the Muslim world. A highly decorated journalist, she is a longtime writer for The New Yorker, a former diplomatic correspondent for The Washington Post, and has reported from more than 140 countries. Wright has written or edited eight books, including the widely acclaimed “Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion across the Islamic World.” She is a prolific analyst, a fixture on prime-time news programs, and was the recipient of the U.N. Correspondents Gold Medal for international reporting and the National Magazine Award.

Full Bio

Robin Wright is a joint fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a contributing writer to The New Yorker. She has reported from more than 140 countries on six continents and has covered a dozen wars and several revolutions. She is a former diplomatic correspondent for The Washington Post and has also written for The New York Times Magazine, TIME, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, the Los Angeles Times, Foreign Affairs and many others. Wright has been a fellow at the Brookings Institution, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as well as Yale, Duke, and the University of California.

Among several awards, Wright received the U.N. Correspondents Gold Medal, the National Magazine Award for reportage from Iran in The New Yorker, and the Overseas Press Club Award for “best reporting in any medium requiring exceptional courage and initia­tive” for her coverage of African wars. The American Academy of Diplomacy selected Wright as the journalist of the year for her “distinguished reporting and analysis of international affairs.” She also won the National Press Club Award for diplomatic reporting and has been the recipient of a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation grant.

She has been a television commentator on morning and evening news programs on ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN and MSNBC as well as “Meet the Press,” “Face the Nation,” “This Week,” “Nightline,” “PBS Newshour,” “Frontline,” “Charlie Rose,” “Washington Week in Review,” “Hardball,” “Morning Joe,” “Anderson Cooper 360,” “The Situation Room,” “The Colbert Report” and HBO’s “Real Time.”

Wright’s most recent book is “Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion across the Islamic World.” It was selected as the Best Book on International Affairs by the Overseas Press club. Her other books include “Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East” (2008), which The New York Times and The Washington Post both selected as one of the most notable books of the year. She was the editor of “The Iran Primer: Power, Politics and U.S. Policy” (2010). Her other books include “The Last Great Revolution: Turmoil and Transformation in Iran” (2000), which was selected as one of the 25 most memorable books of the year 2000 by the New York Library Association, “Sacred Rage: The Wrath of Militant Islam” (2001), “Flashpoints: Promise and Peril in a New World” (1991), and “In the Name of God: The Khomeini Decade” (1989).
 

Wilson Center Project

"The Middle East at a Crossroads—from North Africa to the Persian Gulf”

Major Publications

• "Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion across the Islamic World." (2011).
• "The Iran Primer: Power, Politics and U.S. Policy." (2010).
• “The Islamists are Coming: Who They Really Are.” (2012).

Previous Terms

Sept 1, 2008 - Jan 1, 2012