Michael Dobbs (American author)
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Michael Dobbs (born 27 July 1950) is a British-
American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...
non-fiction author and journalist.


Early life and education

Dobbs was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland and graduated from the
University of York , mottoeng = On the threshold of wisdom , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £8.0 million , budget = £403.6 million , chancellor = Heather Melville , vice_chancellor = Charlie Jeffery , students ...
in 1972, with a BA in Economics & Economic History, and completed fellowships at Princeton and Harvard. He became a U.S. citizen in 2010.


Career

Dobbs spent much of his career as a foreign correspondent covering the collapse of communism. He was the first Western reporter to visit the Gdansk shipyard in August 1980; he also covered the Tiananmen Square uprising in
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
in 1989, the abortive coup against Mikhail Gorbachev in August 1991, and the
wars in the former Yugoslavia The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related Naimark (2003), p. xvii. ethnic conflicts, wars of independence, and insurgencies that took place in the SFR Yugoslavia from 1991 to 2001. The conflicts both led up to and resulted from t ...
. He joined '' The Washington Post'' in 1980, when he was appointed bureau chief in eastern Europe (1980–1981), based in Warsaw. He was also bureau chief in Paris (1982–1986) and Moscow (1988–1993). Other assignments included stints in Rome for
Reuters news agency Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was estab ...
(1974–1975), in Africa as a freelancer (1976), and as a special correspondent in
Belgrade Belgrade ( , ;, ; Names of European cities in different languages: B, names in other languages) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city in Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers a ...
(1977–1980), when he covered the death of Marshal
Josip Broz Tito Josip Broz ( sh-Cyrl, Јосип Броз, ; 7 May 1892 – 4 May 1980), commonly known as Tito (; sh-Cyrl, Тито, links=no, ), was a Yugoslav communist revolutionary and statesman, serving in various positions from 1943 until his deat ...
. In Washington, he worked for the ''Post'' as a United States Department of State reporter and as a foreign investigative reporter, covering the
Dayton peace process The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, also known as the Dayton Agreement or the Dayton Accords ( Croatian: ''Daytonski sporazum'', Serbian and Bosnian: ''Dejtonski mirovni sporazum'' / Дејтонски мир ...
. During the U.S. presidential campaign in 2008, he returned to the newspaper to launch its online "Fact Checker" column. Dobbs is the author of the "Cold War trilogy", a series of books about the climactic moments of the
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
. His ''Down with Big Brother: The Fall of The Soviet Empire'' was a runner-up for the 1997
PEN award This is a list of awards sponsored by International PEN centres. There are over 145 PEN centres on the world, some of which hold annual literary awards. The PEN American Center awards have been characterized as being among the "major" literary awar ...
for nonfiction. His hour-by-hour study of the
Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis (of 1962) ( es, Crisis de Octubre) in Cuba, the Caribbean Crisis () in Russia, or the Missile Scare, was a 35-day (16 October – 20 November 1962) confrontation between the United S ...
, ''One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War'', was a finalist for the 2008 '' Los Angeles Times'' history prize and was named one of five non-fiction books of the year by ''The Washington Post''. The final book in the trilogy, ''Six Months in 1945: From World War to Cold War'' (Knopf, 2012), describes the division of Europe into American and Soviet spheres of influence after World War II. His 2019 book, ''The Unwanted: America, Auschwitz, and a Village Caught in Between'' won th
Jewish Book Club Award for Holocaust Studies
It tells the story of Jewish families desperately seeking American visas to escape Nazi Germany during the years leading up to the Holocaust. Earlier books include a biography of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and ''Saboteurs: The Nazi Raid on America'', about a bungled Nazi sabotage attempt directed against the United States in 1942. Michael Dobbs was a visiting professor in the Department of Communications Studies at the University of Michigan from 2010–2011; he has also taught at Princeton, Georgetown, and American universities. He is a staff member of the
U.S. Holocaust Museum The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust hist ...
, where he organized conferences of international decision-makers on the genocides in Rwanda and Bosnia. He also covered the genocide trial of former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladić for ''
Foreign Policy A State (polity), state's foreign policy or external policy (as opposed to internal or domestic policy) is its objectives and activities in relation to its interactions with other states, unions, and other political entities, whether bilaterall ...
'' magazine. Dobbs's most recent book is ''King Richard: Nixon and Watergate - an American Tragedy'', (Knopf, 2021) which earned starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Kirkus, and was described as "intimate and extraordinary" by
Jennifer Szalai Jennifer Szalai is the nonfiction critic at ''The New York Times''. Szalai was born in Canada and attended the University of Toronto, studying political science and peace and conflict. She also holds a master's degree in international relations fro ...
in ''The New York Times''.


Bibliography


Personal life

Dobbs, who lives outside Washington D.C., is a distant relative of
Michael Dobbs Michael John Dobbs, Baron Dobbs (born 14 November 1948) is a British Conservative politician and author, best known for his ''House of Cards'' trilogy. Early life and education Michael Dobbs was born on 14 November 1948 in Cheshunt, Hertfordsh ...
, the British politician and author of the political thriller ''House of Cards''.


References


External links


Author website
*
''Booknotes'' interview with Dobbs on ''Saboteurs: The Nazi Raid on America'', 28 March 2004.
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dobbs, Michael 1950 births Living people journalists from Belfast Harvard Fellows Irish emigrants to the United States Alumni of the University of York University of Michigan faculty Princeton University fellows