Tom Nichols is a staff writer at The Atlantic. An expert on international security issues, he taught national security affairs for 25 years at the U.S. Naval War College, as well as at the Harvard Extension School, Dartmouth College, and Georgetown University. He was a Fellow of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and an adjunct at the US Air Force School of Strategic Force Studies. In Washington, he was a Fellow of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and served on Capitol Hill as personal staff for defense and security affairs to the late Senator John Heinz of Pennsylvania.
He is the author of several books on Russia, the Cold War, and international politics. In 2017 he wrote The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters, an international best-seller that has been translated into fourteen foreign languages and will be released in an updated and expanded version in 2024. His most recent book is Our Own Worst Enemy: The Assault From Within on Modern Democracy, which Publisher’s Weekly called “A searing critique of contemporary political culture and the rise of illiberalism on both the right and the left.”
He is also a five-time undefeated Jeopardy! champion and was listed in the Jeopardy Hall of Fame after his 1994 appearances as one of the best players of the game. A native of Massachusetts, he lives in Rhode Island with his family and a remarkable cat named Carla.
The catalytic power of this Summit in bringing together those who are devoting their lives to pushing back and working to confront, understand and work towards solutions around hate in our society is a noble and difficult task. The Summit not only energized those who attended but led to connecting the dots in a global network of those doing this work. The stories of the victims of hate were painful to witness but their courage in coming forward was inspirational. Those who attended left energized with the hope that by working together solutions can be forged.
