Scott Stossel has been associated with the magazine since 1992 when, shortly after graduating from Harvard, he joined the staff and helped to launch The Atlantic Online. In 1996, he moved to The American Prospect where, over the course of seven years, he served as associate editor, executive editor, and culture editor. He rejoined the Atlantic staff in 2002.
His articles have appeared in a wide array of publications, including The New Yorker, The New Republic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe. His 2004 book, Sarge: The Life and Times of Sargent Shriver, inspired The Boston Globe to write, "Scott Stossel's superb new biography is an extraordinary achievement," while Publisher's Weekly declared, "This is a superbly researched, immensely readable political biography." His most recent book, My Age of Anxiety: Fear, Hope, Dread, and the Search for Peace of Mind, became a top-ten New York Times bestseller in its first week of publication.
Within the Atlantic offices, Scott will be forever remembered as the managing editor who oversaw the magazine's 2005 move to Washington from Boston, where it had been based since its founding in 1857. Under Scott's supervision, the magazine shifted all of its operations from Boston's North End to the Watergate building, all the while producing issues that were later nominated for National Magazine Awards.
Along with writing and editing, Scott has taught courses in the American Studies Department at Trinity College. He lives with his family in Washington, D.C.
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Race and the American Idea
Some colleagues and I have just finished compiling a massive (290,000 words, which is probably about 750 book pages—and…
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Mike McQuade The NFL Is Evil—and Unstoppable
Despite incidents of cheating, taxpayer fleecing, domestic abuse, brain damage, and suicide, America can’t stop watching professional football.
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Reuters Bill Maher on Masturbation and National Security
The comedian has just launched the twelfth season of Real Time and is about to hit the road for a tour of stand-up dates in red states.
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Reuters Performance Anxiety in Great Performers
What Hugh Grant, Gandhi, and Thomas Jefferson have in common
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Jamie Chung Surviving Anxiety
I've tried therapy, drugs, and booze. Here’s how I came to terms with the nation's most common mental illness.
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Knifed
How a Kennedy brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, fell victim to the jealous acolytes of a political dynasty in mourning
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Paul Windle What Makes Us Happy, Revisited
A new look at the famous Harvard study of what makes people thrive
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Robert Spitzer
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'An Optimist's Eye and a Skeptic's Squint': Remembering Robert Manning
Remembering the longtime Atlantic editor, who guided the magazine through a critical era of war, protest, and cultural change.
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Arnold Schwarzenegger on Denial, the Shrivers, and Having It All
Before he ran for office, he had a lot to say about work-life balance and the legendary family he married into.
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The Good Works of Sargent Shriver
The founder of the Peace Corps and leader of the War on Poverty has died. His biographer reflects on a remarkable legacy.
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Eunice the Formidable
Eunice Shriver thoroughly terrified her husband's biographer—and inspired his profound admiration. A reminiscence.
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North Korea: The War Game
Dealing with North Korea could make Iraq look like child's play—and the longer we wait, the harder it will get. That's the message of a Pentagon-style war game involving some of this country's most prominent foreign-policy strategists
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“Knifed”
In 1968 the Kennedy family essentially blackballed a brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, who was very close to being chosen as Hubert Humphrey's running mate. In doing so, they may have accidentally thrown the election to Richard Nixon
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As American as Women’s Soccer?
Everything about the new professional women's soccer league is unorthodox—which is why it may succeed
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The Next Left
Richard Rorty, the eminent philosopher and author of Achieving Our Country, argues that the American Left, if it is to recapture its relevance, must take pride in its past.
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The Man Who Counts the Killings
George Gerbner, who thirty years ago founded the Cultural Indicators project, which is best known for its estimate that the average American child will have watched 8,000 murders on television by the age of twelve, is so alarmed about the baneful effects of TV that he describes them in terms of "fascism."
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Right, Here Goes
A review of Therapy by David Lodge.
