George Packer

{{Infobox writer

| name = George Packer

| image = George packer 2013.jpg

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| caption = George Packer at the 2013 Texas Book Festival

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| birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1960}}

| birth_place = Santa Clara, California, U.S.

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Journalist
novelist
playwright

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| alma_mater = Yale University (BA)

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| notableworks = The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq

| spouse = Michele Millon (?-?)
Laura Secor (present)

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| awards = National Book Award for Nonfiction in November 2013 for The Unwinding

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George Packer (born August 13, 1960) is an American journalist, novelist, and playwright. He is best known for his writings about U.S. foreign policy for The New Yorker and The Atlantic and for his book The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq. Packer also wrote The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America, covering the history of the US from 1978 to 2012. In November 2013, The Unwinding received the National Book Award for Nonfiction. His award-winning biography, Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century, was released in May 2019. His latest book, Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal, was released in June 2021.

Early life and education

Packer was born in California around 1960.{{Cite book |last=Palmisano |first=Joseph M. |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780787679071/page/284/mode/2up |title=Contemporary Authors |date=2007 |publisher=Gale |isbn=978-1-4144-1017-3 |location=Detroit, MI |pages=285–287}} His parents taught at Stanford University: his mother, Nancy Packer (née Huddleston), was a Wallace Stegner Fellow in the Creative Writing Program and later professor of English, and his father, Herbert L. Packer, was a distinguished professor of law, and the author of numerous books and articles. Packer's maternal grandfather, George Huddleston, Sr., had served eleven successive terms (1915–1937) representing Alabama's 9th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives. His uncle, George Huddleston, Jr., succeeded to his father's seat in the House of Representatives from 1954 to 1964.David Glenn, "[https://web.archive.org/web/20051105053501/http://www.cjr.org/issues/2005/5/glenn.asp Unfinished Wars]", Columbia Journalism Review, September 2005. Packer's sister, Ann Packer, also is a writer. Their father's background was Jewish and their mother's Christian.{{cite news|title= Keeping the Faith|author=Jack Hitt|date=August 27, 2000|url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/00/08/27/reviews/000827.27hittlt.html | work=The New York Times}} In a 2022 talk for House of SpeakEasy's Seriously Entertaining program, Packer shared that his father took his own life when he (Packer) was twelve years old, calling it "the big event of my childhood."{{Citation |title=Seriously Entertaining: George Packer on "Life, Liberty & Other Pursuits" |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0ooZ2PSbEA |language=en |access-date=2023-02-16}}

Packer graduated from Yale University in 1982, where he resided at Calhoun College (now called Grace Hopper College).1982 Yale Banner, p. 377. He served in the Peace Corps in Togo.

Packer is married to writer and editor Laura Secor. He was previously married to Michele Millon.

Career

His essays and articles have appeared in Boston Review, The Nation, World Affairs, Harper's, The New York Times, and The New Yorker, among other publications. Packer was a columnist for Mother Jones and was a staff writer for The New Yorker from 2003 to 2018. He now writes for The Atlantic.{{cite news

|url = http://kellyaward.com/mk_award_popup/packer_g.html

|title = Finalist: George Packer (Biography)

|publisher = The Michael Kelly Award

|url-status = dead

|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070608034851/http://kellyaward.com/mk_award_popup/packer_g.html

|archive-date = 2007-06-08

}}

Packer was a Holtzbrinck Fellow Class of Fall 2009 at the American Academy in Berlin.{{Cite web|title=George Packer|url=https://www.americanacademy.de/person/george-packer-0/|access-date=2021-06-21|website=American Academy|language=en-US}}

His 2005 book The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq analyzes the events that led to the 2003 invasion of Iraq and reports on subsequent developments in that country, largely based on interviews with ordinary Iraqis. He was a supporter of the Iraq war. He was a finalist for the 2004 Michael Kelly Award.

In July 2013 the New Yorker Festival released a video entitled Geoffrey Canada on Giving Voice to the Have-nots, of a panel that was moderated by George Packer. Along with Canada, the panelists included Abhijit Banerjee, Katherine Boo, and Jose Antonio Vargas.[http://video.newyorker.com/watch/geoffrey-canada-on-giving-voice-to-the-have-n "Geoffrey Canada on Giving Voice to the Have-nots"], The New Yorker Festival.

The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America focuses on the ways that America changed in the years between 1978 and 2012. The book achieves this mainly by tracing the lives of various individuals from different backgrounds through the years. Interspersed are capsule biographies of influential figures of the time such as Colin Powell, Newt Gingrich, Elizabeth Warren, Jay-Z, and Raymond Carver.

In 2019, Packer released a book titled Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century, a full-scale scholarly biography of Richard Holbrooke, one of the most influential U.S. diplomats of the late 20th Century.{{Cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/may/02/our-man-by-george-packer-review-richard-holbrooke |title=Our Man by George Packer review – Richard Holbrooke and American power |last=Bloomfield |first=Steve |date=2019-05-02 |website=The Guardian |access-date=2019-08-26}} Our Man was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Biography.{{Cite web |url=https://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/george-packer-0 |title=Finalist: Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century, by George Packer (Alfred A. Knopf)|website=Pulitzer Prize Board |access-date=2023-05-13}}

His 2021 book Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal describes the fragmentation of American society in recent decades into four mutually antagonistic "four Americas": "Free America" (economically liberal), "Smart America" (educated, affluent and socially liberal), "Real America" (white rural precariat) and "Just America" (urban, progressive and economically disadvantaged).

Awards and honors

2005 Cornelius Ryan Award, The Assassin's Gate{{cite web|url=https://opcofamerica.org/2005-opc-award-winners/|title=2005 OPC Award Winners|website=opcofamerica.org|date=April 20, 2006|access-date=November 15, 2020}}
2013 National Book Award for Nonfiction, The Unwinding{{cite web |url=http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/awards-and-prizes/article/60089-2013-national-book-awards-go-to-mcbride-packer-szybist-kadohata.html |title=2013 National Book Awards Go to McBride, Packer, Szybist, Kadohata |work=Publishers Weekly |author=Clare Swanson |date=November 20, 2013 |access-date=December 3, 2013}}{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/james-mcbride-george-packer-win-national-book-awards/2013/11/20/f365cc1e-5257-11e3-9ee6-2580086d8254_story.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131121065340/http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/james-mcbride-george-packer-win-national-book-awards/2013/11/20/f365cc1e-5257-11e3-9ee6-2580086d8254_story.html|archive-date=November 21, 2013|title=James McBride, George Packer win National Book Awards|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=November 21, 2013|access-date=November 22, 2013|url-status=dead}}
2013 National Book Critics Circle Award (Nonfiction) shortlist for The Unwinding{{cite web |url=http://bookcritics.org/blog/archive/announcing-the-national-book-critics-awards-finalists |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140115014055/http://bookcritics.org/blog/archive/announcing-the-national-book-critics-awards-finalists |url-status=dead |archive-date=January 15, 2014 |title=Announcing the National Book Critics Awards Finalists for Publishing Year 2013 |publisher=National Book Critics Circle |date=January 14, 2014 |access-date=January 14, 2014}}
2017 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant to complete Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century{{cite web|last1=Whiting Foundation|title=2017 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grantee: George Packer|url=https://www.whiting.org/awards/content/george-packer#/|website=Whiting.org|access-date=24 January 2018}}
2019 Hitchens Prize{{cite web |title=2019 Prize |url=http://www.dvrf.org/2019-prize-george-packer |publisher=The Dennis & Victoria Ross Foundation}} Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century{{cite web |last1=Last Best Hope / George Packer |title=author's page |url=https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374603663 |website=Macmillan Publishers |access-date=13 June 2021}}
2019 Los Angeles Times Book Prize (biography) for Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century{{cite web |title=George Packer |url=https://us.macmillan.com/author/georgepacker/ |website=us.Macmillan.com |publisher=Macmillan Publishers |access-date=20 October 2020}}
2019 Pulitzer Prize finalist for Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century

Bibliography

References

External links

[http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/bios/george_packer/search?contributorName=george%20packer George Packer articles at The New Yorker]
[http://www.foreignaffairs.com/author/george-packer George Packer articles at Foreign Affairs]
[http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/george_packer/index.html?8qa George Packer articles at The New York Times]
{{C-SPAN|86318}}

Category:1960 births

Category:Living people

Category:20th-century American dramatists and playwrights

Category:20th-century American essayists

Category:20th-century American Jews

Category:20th-century American journalists

Category:20th-century American male writers

Category:20th-century American novelists

Category:21st-century American dramatists and playwrights

Category:21st-century American essayists

Category:21st-century American Jews

Category:21st-century American journalists