Daniel Pipes

Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and a prize-winning columnist. Domestically, he appears in the New York Sun and the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. Abroad, he appears weekly in Israel’s Jerusalem Post, Italy’s L’Opinione, Spain’s La Razón, and monthly in the Australian and Canada’s Globe and Mail. His most recent book is Miniatures: Views of Islamic and Middle Eastern Politics. His website, DanielPipes.org, is the single most accessed internet source of specialized information on the Middle East and Islam. It offers an archive of his work and a place to sign-up to receive by e-mail his writings as they appear.

Mr. Pipes is one of the first analysts to understand the threat of radical Islam (“Unnoticed by most Westerners,” he wrote in 1995, “war has been unilaterally declared on Europe and the United States”). The Boston Globe states that “If Pipes’s admonitions had been heeded, there might never have been a 9/11.” The Wall Street Journal calls him “an authoritative commentator on the Middle East.” MSNBC describes him as one of the best-known “Mideast policy luminaries.”

He received his A.B. (1971) and Ph.D. (1978) from Harvard University, both in history, and spent six years studying abroad, including three years in Egypt. Mr. Pipes speaks French, and reads Arabic and German. He has taught at the University of Chicago, Harvard Uni-versity, and the U.S. Naval War College. He served in various capacities in the U.S. government, including two presidentially-appointed positions, vice chairman of the Fulbright Board of Foreign Scholarships and member of the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace. He was director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute in 1986-93.

Mr. Pipes frequently discusses current issues on television, appearing on such U.S. programs as ABC World News, CBS Reports, Crossfire, Good Morning America, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Nightline, O’Reilly Factor, and The Today Show. He has appeared on leading television networks around the globe, including the BBC and Al-Jazeera, and has lectured in twenty-five countries. He has consulted on Middle Eastern topics for prominent financial, manufacturing, and service companies; law firms, bar associations, trade groups; agencies of the U.S. government; and law courts in the United States and Canada.

Mr. Pipes has published in such magazines as the Atlantic Monthly, Commentary, Foreign Affairs, Harper’s, National Review, New Republic, Time, and The Weekly Standard. More than a hundred American newspapers have carried his articles, including the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. His writings have been translated into twenty-seven languages and have appeared outside the United States in such newspapers as ABC, Corriere della Sera, The Daily Telegraph, Le Figaro, The Globe and Mail, The Sydney Morning Herald, and Die Zeit. His articles are also found on hundreds of websites.

Mr. Pipes has written twelve books.

Four deal with Islam: Militant Islam Reaches America (2002), The Rushdie Affair (Birch Lane, 1990), In the Path of God (Basic Books, 1983), and Slave Soldiers and Islam (Yale University Press, 1981).

Three books concern Syria: Syria Beyond the Peace Process (1996), Damascus Courts the West (Washington Institute, 1991), and Greater Syria (Oxford University Press, 1990).

Four deal with other Middle Eastern topics: The Hidden Hand (St. Martin’s, 1996) analyses conspiracy theories among Arabs and Iranians. An Arabist’s Guide to Colloquial Egyptian (Foreign Service Institute, 1983) systematizes the grammar of Arabic as spoken in Egypt. The Long Shadow (Transaction, 1989) and Miniatures (2003) contain some of his best essays.

Conspiracy (Free Press 1997) establishes the importance of conspiracy theories in modern Europe and America.

Mr. Pipes has edited two collections of essays, Sandstorm (UPA, 1993) and Friendly Tyrants (St. Martin’s, 1991). He is the joint author of eleven books.

Mr. Pipes sits on five editorial boards, has testified before many congressional committees, and worked on four presidential campaigns. He is listed in Marquis’ Who’s Who in the East, Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in the World. Universities in the United States and Switzerland have conferred honorary degrees on him.

Mr. Pipes takes pride in having been Borked by Edward Kennedy, called an “Orientalist” by Edward Said, and deemed the neo-conservative movement’s “leading thinker” by Al-Ahram, Egypt’s leading newspaper.

Mr. Pipes founded in 1994 the Middle East Forum (MEForum.org), an independent 501(c)3 organization. With a US$1 million budget, the Forum’s mission is “promoting American interests” through publications, research, media outreach, and public education. The Forum publishes the Middle East Quarterly, runs lectures series in four cities, and sponsors Campus Watch (Campus-Watch.org), a project to review, critique, and improve Middl