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Widely respected in contemporary journalism, Franklin Foer has made a name for himself as one of America’s premiere reporters. Foer offers refreshing takes on some of our most pressing topics, covering everything from politics to technology, immigration to economics, liberalism to sports, with his trademark perception and candor. A fellow at the New America Foundation, Foer served as editor for The New Republic for seven years. He became a national correspondent for The Atlantic in December 2016.
In 2004, Foer published How Soccer Explains the World, a groundbreaking look at how the world’s most popular sport can help us understand international relations, cultural conflicts, and the global economy. The Wall Street Journal called the book “an insightful, entertaining, brainiac sports road trip,” and The New York Times praised it as “an eccentric, fascinating exposé of a world most of us know nothing about.” The book has been translated into 27 languages and was named one of the five most influential sports books of the decade by Sports Illustrated. It remains a favorite at colleges and universities across the country.
Foer’s latest book, World Without Mind, delivers a blistering polemic against big tech, taking on the titanic companies that seem to run our digital age. While corporations like Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google boast that they are changing the world for the better, Foer explores the darker side of Silicon Valley, addressing how these very companies are undermining liberal values and violating laws that protect our privacy and intellectual property. Tracing the history of computer science—from René Descartes, to Alan Turing, to Steve Jobs—Foer concludes that we are now facing an existential crisis in the face of technology monopolists, and proposes how we can begin reining them in.
ABOUT THE LAST POLITICIANFranklin Foer tells the definitive insider story of the first two years of the Biden presidency, with exclusive access to Biden’s longtime team of advisers, and presents a gripping portrait of a president during this momentous time in our nation’s history.
“You might love Biden or you might hate Biden, but either way, if you want to understand him, you will want to buy this book.” —Politico
On January 20, 2021, standing where only two weeks earlier police officers had battled with right-wing paramilitaries, Joe Biden took his oath of office. The American people were still sick with COVID-19, his economists were already warning him of an imminent financial crisis, and his party, the Democrats, had the barest of majorities in the Senate. Yet, faced with an unprecedented set of crises, Joe Biden decided he would not play defense. Instead, he set out to transform the nation. He proposed the most ambitious domestic spending bills since the 1960s and vowed to withdraw American forces from Afghanistan, ending the nation’s longest war and reorienting it toward a looming competition with China.
With unparalleled access to the tight inner circle of advisers who have surrounded Biden for decades, Franklin Foer dramatizes in forensic detail the first two years of the Biden presidency, concluding with the historic midterm elections. The result is a gripping and high-definition portrait of a major president at a time when democracy itself seems imperiled. With his back to the wall, Biden resorted to old-fashioned politics: deal-making and compromise. It was a gamble that seemed at first disastrously anachronistic, as he struggled to rally even the support of his own party. Yet, as the midterms drew near, via a series of bills with banal names, Biden somehow found a way to invest trillions of dollars in clean energy, the domestic semiconductor industry, and new infrastructure. Had he done the impossible―breaking decisively with the old Washington consensus to achieve progressive goals?
The Last Politician is a landmark work of political reporting—which includes thrilling, blow-by-blow insider reports of the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan and the White House’s swift response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine—that is destined to shape history’s view of a president in the eye of the storm.
In addition to his work at The New Republic and The Atlantic, Foer has been a contributor to Slate and New York Magazine. He was also the co-editor of the celebrated collection Jewish Jocks, winner of the 2012 National Jewish Book Award.
In his talks, Foer draws on his books and his work as a journalist to break down complicated domestic and international issues. He is a popular speaker at conferences, associations, and universities.
Foer is the brother of novelist Jonathan Safran Foer and journalist Joshua Foer. A Columbia University graduate, he lives in Washington D.C.
