Joel L. Swerdlow is an American author, editor, journalist, researcher, and educator. His works include To Heal a Nation: The Story of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, co-authored with Jan Scruggs, which became a 1988 NBC movie. His articles have been published in American newspapers and magazines, and international publications have translated his work into more than three dozen languages for international publication. For ten years, he worked as a senior writer and assistant editor of National Geographic, and was the lead writer for the magazine's 1998–1999 Millennium series.
Life and work
Swerdlow was born in Washington, D.C., and raised in areas including Burma (the Union of Myanmar) and France. He received his undergraduate degree in political science (B.A., cum laude) from Syracuse University, and his M.A. in American government and Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1974. His doctoral dissertation examined voting behavior in presidential primary elections. It discussed the question: how representative of the general population are the views of people who vote in presidential primaries?
Swerdlow has taught at Georgetown University and Johns Hopkins University, and currently teaches at the Washington, D.C., campus of the University of Texas (UT) as an adjunct professor.
His UT course is entitled "Politics, Power and Poetry" and the textbooks are Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass and Readings to Accompany Walks Across Washington (2010). At Johns Hopkins, he taught two graduate seminars: (1) "Notions of Progress," which grew out of his observation that throughout recorded history complex societies have adopted and then abandoned a technology on three times; (2) History of Communications Technologies, which put the advent of the Internet in the context of its evolution from previous technologies, beginning with writing. He served as Faculty Director for the Special Academic Honors Seminar for The Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars (2006).
He was a senior writer and assistant editor for National Geographic, and its lead writer for the 1998–1999 Millennium series. His articles have been included in two collections: Best of the Washington Post, and From the Field: Writing From National Geographic Magazine. He was a National Magazine Awards finalist for his December 1994 story, "America's Poet: Walt Whitman," and he was cited again in 2000, for general excellence. Additionally, his writing is included in books that present the "best of" articles from the Washington Post and National Geographic Magazine. A Washington Post critic praised his work as taking National Geographic Magazine into exploration that is "biological, anthropological, spiritual."
Swerdlow covered the White House and the Watergate conspiracy trial for National Public Radio (NPR). Referred to as a "debate historian" in an article about current debates (such as one focusing on the performance of Sarah Palin), he is quoted as saying that even "the Lincoln-Douglas encounters were popular mostly because they were excellent theater and not because what was said was particularly wise or revealing." He has written about and been interviewed about past political debates, especially Presidential debates, and is a frequent commentator and panelist on television specials on a wide range of topics, including the April 10, 2000 C-SPAN program The Future of Exploration, focusing on the goals of environmentalists, scientists, and explorers in the pursuit of "unraveling the mysteries" of our planet.
Before writing his doctoral dissertation, Swerdlow worked from the summer of 1971 to the fall of 1972 for the McGovern for President Committee; he joined the campaign as a field organizer when it had only $2500 in its campaign fund, with his efforts recounted in works such as Ted Van Dyk's "Heroes, Hacks and Fools: Memoirs from the political arena," and Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72.
In 1974, he was the campaign manager of Mario Cuomo's unsuccessful campaign for lieutenant governor of New York in the Democratic primary on a ticket headed by Howard J. Samuels.
Swerdlow was the assistant producer and writer of the documentary The Gift of a Lifetime, on the subject of organ and tissue donation. He served as the University of Wisconsin Science Writer in Residence during the Fall of 2004. His residency included the delivery of the public lecture, "The Rest are Left to Die: Health Care Rationing and the News Media."
