Jefferson LECTURE SERIES

The Third Stage: The New Frontiers of Religion and Public Life

E.J. Dionne, Columnist, and Senior Fellow, Governmental Studies, The Washington Post, and The Brookings Institution

March 07, 2001

About E.J. Dionne

Dionne is a political columnist at The Washington Post. His analysis of American politics and the trends of public sentiment is recognized as among the best in the business, and he examines the strengths and weaknesses of competing political philosophies. Dionne spent 14 years with The New York Times, reporting in state and local politics, and from around the world, including stints in Paris, Rome, and Beirut. In 1990, Dionne joined The Washington Post as a reporter, covering national politics. He began his op-ed column for the paper in 1993, and it was syndicated twice weekly, in 1996. He has been a frequent commentator on politics for National Public Radio, CNN and NBC's "Meet the Press". Dionne's best-selling book Why Americans Hate Politics? (1991) anticipated all the major themes of the 1992 campaign. It won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was a National Book Award nominee. The New York Times called his second book They Only Look Dead: Why Progressives Dominate the Next Political Era (1996) "a luminously intelligent and quietly passionate polemic that deserves to alter the terms of American political debate." The Sunday Independent of London listed Dionne as one the 40 most influential thinkers of our times in 1996. After graduating summa cum laude from Harvard University in 1973, Dionne received his doctorate from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. In 1994-95, he was a guest scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, and is currently a Senior Fellow of the Governmental Studies Program at The Brookings Institution. E.J. Dionne grew up in Fall River, Massachusetts, and resides in Washington, DC.

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