Biography of Susan George

NB: This biography is current to the end of November 2008. Please do not use wikipedia or any other source for bio and photos.

A much longer biography was published in
Current Biography, Volume 68, July 2007

For those introducing me at speeches and other events: the first paragraph hereunder is more than adequate. I include further details for the sake of completeness.

SUSAN GEORGE is the author of fourteen books written in French and English and widely translated. She is president of the Board of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam, a decentralised fellowship of scholars living throughout the world whose work is intended to contribute to social justice and who are active in civil society in their own countries. She is also honorary president of ATTAC-France [Association for Taxation of Financial Transaction to Aid Citizens] where she also served as vice-president between 1999 and mid-2006 and remains a member of the scientific council. Her most recent books are [1] Hijacking America: How the Religious and Secular Right Changed What Americans Think [Polity Press 2008] which exists in French, Spanish and Italian and will soon appear in Korean, Japanese and Brazilian Portuguese; [2] We the Peoples of Europe [Pluto Press 2008], also in French, Nous, Peuples d'Europe [ Fayard, Paris 2005] and Spanish. Other recent books are Another World is Possible if... [Verso, New York and London, 2004] and The Lugano Report: On preserving capitalism in the 21st century [Pluto Press 1999], both available in many other languages. Her well-known first book How the Other Half Dies: the Real Reasons for World Hunger is now available on her TNI homepage. She has received honorary doctorates from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and the Universidad Nacional de Educacion a Distancia of Madrid as well as the first “Outstanding Public Scholar Award of the International Political Economy section of the International Studies Association.

Susan George's academic degrees are in French/Government [B.A.Smith College, USA ]; Philosophy [Licence ès Philsophie, Sorbonne] and Political Studies [Doctorate, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, University of Paris]. Her current work concerns various aspects of neoliberal globalisation and ideology. She helped to lead the campaign in France to defeat the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) and the subsequent movement of "GATS-Free Zones" to which over 1500 local governments in Europe now belong. Her recent work on the future of Europe and the ideological transformation of the United States has led to many speaking engagements and media appearances.

Earlier books include Faith and Credit: the World Bank’s Secular Empire (with Fabrizio Sabelli, Penguin, 1994); The Debt Boomerang (Pluto Press, 1992); Ill Fares the Land (Penguin, 1990); A Fate Worse than Debt (Penguin 1987); Food for Beginners (Writers and Readers, 1983); How the Other Half Dies: the Real Reasons for World Hunger (Penguin 1976). Books in French are Pour ou Contre la Mondialisation Libérale (a debate with Martin Wolf of the Financial Times, Editions Grasset, Paris 2002); Remettre l'OMC à sa Place (Editions Mille et Une Nuits, Paris 2001); La Suisse aux Enchères (with Fabrizio Sabelli, Editions Zoé, Geneva 1997) and Les Stratèges de la Faim (Editions Grounauer, Geneva 1982, her doctoral dissertation). Susan George is the author of dozens of prefaces, journal and magazine articles, conference and seminar contributions, chapters in edited volumes, etc. Some of these can be consulted on her TNI web page. Her work has been widely translated; part or all exists in French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, four Scandinavian languages, Estonian, Japanese, Korean, Bengali, Thai, etc.

From 1990-95 she served on the Board of Greenpeace International as well as that of Greenpeace France. She has acted as a consultant to various United Nations specialised agencies and is a frequent public speaker, particularly for ATTAC groups, trade unions and environment/development Non-Governmental Organisations in many countries. She is frequently interviewed for press, radio and television.

Susan George was born in the United States, lives in Paris and is a French citizen. She was widowed in 2002, has three children and four grand-children.

Biography by The H. W. Wilson Company, July 2007