Forum on the Humanities and the Public World

Robert Reich, Professor of the Goldman School of Public Policy
“The Four Narratives of American Public Life”

Wednesday, February 21, 2007 | 5 pm | Maude Fife Room, 315 Wheeler Hall
with commentary by Robin Einhorn, History, UC Berkeley

Robert B. Reich is Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton. He has written 10 books, including The Work of Nations, which has been translated into 22 languages; the best-sellers The Future of Success and Locked in the Cabinet, and his most recent book, Reason. His articles have appeared in the New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. Reich is co-founding editor of The American Prospect magazine. His weekly commentaries on public radio’s “Marketplace” are heard by nearly 5 million people.

In 2003, Reich was awarded the prestigious Vaclev Havel Foundation Prize, by the former Czech president, for his pioneering work in economic and social thought. In 2005, his play, Public Exposure, broke box office records at its world premiere on Cape Cod.

As the nation’s 22nd Secretary of Labor, Reich implemented the Family and Medical Leave Act; led a national fight against sweatshops in the U.S. and illegal child labor around the world; headed the administration’s successful effort to raise the minimum wage; secured worker’s pensions; and launched job-training programs, one-stop career centers, and school-to-work initiatives. Under his leadership, the Department of Labor won more than 30 awards for innovation. A 1996 poll of cabinet experts conducted by the Hearst newspapers rated him the most effective cabinet secretary during the Clinton administration.

Reich has been a member of the faculties of Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and of Brandeis University. He received his B.A. from Dartmouth College, his M.A. from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and his J.D. from Yale Law School. He has worked as a faculty member at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, director of Policy Planning Staff of the Federal Trade Commission under President Jimmy Carter, assistant to the Solicitor General under President Gerald Ford, and former chairman of the political magazine The American Prospect, which he co-founded.

Links

Official Website

Public Radio Commentaries

Profile on American Prospect

Wikipedia Profile

Blog

Transcript of remarks regarding Reich’s book Reason, from Carnegie Council event