James Howard Kunstler
| James Howard Kunstler | |
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Kunstler in December 2007
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| Born |
October 19, 1948 New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation | Author, social critic, blogger |
| Nationality | American |
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James Howard Kunstler (born October 19, 1948) is an American author, social critic, public speaker, and blogger. He is best known for his books The Geography of Nowhere (1994), a history of American suburbia and urban development, The Long Emergency (2005), and most recently, Too Much Magic (2012). In The Long Emergency, he argues that declining oil production is likely to result in the end of industrialized society as we know it and force Americans to live in smaller-scale, localized, agrarian (or semi-agrarian) communities. Starting with World Made by Hand in 2008, Kunstler has written a series of science fiction novels about such a culture in the future.
Kunstler gives lectures on topics related to suburbia, urban development, and the challenges of what he calls "the global oil predicament", and a resultant change in the "American Way of Life." He has lectured at the TED Conference, the American Institute of Architects, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the International Council of Shopping Centers, the National Association of Science and Technology, as well as at numerous colleges and universities, including Yale, MIT, Harvard, Cornell, University of Illinois, DePaul, Texas A & M, the USMA, and Rutgers University.
As a journalist, Kunstler continues to write for The Atlantic Monthly, Slate.com, RollingStone, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, and its op-ed page where he often covers environmental and economic issues. Kunstler is also a leading supporter of the movement known as "New Urbanism."
Kunstler was born in New York City to Jewish parents, who divorced when he was eight. His family then moved to the suburbs on Long Island. His biological father was a middleman in the diamond trade. Kunstler spent most of his childhood with his mother and stepfather, a publicist for Broadway shows. While spending summers at a boys' camp in New Hampshire, he became acquainted with a small town ethos that would later permeate many of his works.
In 1966, he graduated from New York City's High School of Music & Art, and attended the State University of New York at Brockport, where he majored in theater. After college, Kunstler worked as a reporter and feature writer for a number of newspapers, and finally as a staff writer for Rolling Stone. In 1975, he began writing books and lecturing full-time.
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