Lance Morrow

Henry Grunwald Senior Fellow

Lance Morrow is the Henry Grunwald Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. His work focuses on the moral and ethical dimensions of public events, including developments in regard to freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and political correctness on American campuses, with a view to the future consequences of such suppressions.

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Lance Morrow is the Henry Grunwald Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. His work focuses on the moral and ethical dimensions of public events, including developments in regard to freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and political correctness on American campuses, with a view to the future consequences of such suppressions.

Morrow’s award-winning essays, appearing in TimeSmithsonianThe New York TimesThe Atlantic, and other publications, have offered probing analyses of American culture and politics in the transition from the 20th to the 21st century.

Morrow wrote about every presidential election from Nixon to Obama, wars from Vietnam to Bosnia to the Middle East. Morrow was the author of more than 150 cover stories for Time, including eight Man of the Year articles.

He is currently writing a book about Henry Luce and his magazines’ role in shaping American culture and opinions in the middle third of the 20th century. Morrow is a strong believer in the role of journalism in sustaining freedom and democracy.

The son of an editor of the old Saturday Evening Post and of a Washington columnist for the Knight syndicate, Morrow grew up in Washington. He attended Gonzaga High School, and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University. For nine years (1996-2005), he was a University Professor at Boston University, where he taught presidential history and the art of the essay.

The author of seven books, Morrow is a two-time winner of the National Magazine Award—the first for his original coverage in essay form of American cultural affairs, the second for his essay that was part of Time‘s special coverage of September 11th.

Morrow’s study of the question of evil, arising among other things from his travel in the Bosnian war zone with Elie Wiesel, was a finalist for the National Magazine Award.  Later, he turned the article into a critically acclaimed book—Evil: An Investigation.

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Your Periodic Reminder That Evil Is Real

Lance Morrow

Hamas’s atrocities force us to confront the concept, though it doesn’t take long for equivocation to begin.

Wall Street Journal / October 24, 2023

Premonitions

Lance Morrow

Remembering a 1988 meeting with the founder of Hamas.

City Journal / October 23, 2023

From Dignified to Disheveled

Lance Morrow

Waiving its longstanding dress code, the Senate is inviting its members to turn the place into a smelly gym or a psychiatrist’s waiting room.

City Journal / September 25, 2023

America in the Age of ‘Retcon’

Lance Morrow

Rewriting the past to suit the fashions of the present is harmless in fiction but a danger in real life.

Wall Street Journal / September 20, 2023

Requiem for a Dumpster Full of Books

Lance Morrow

The magic of print is that it codifies the great human inventory in physical form. No screen can do that.

Wall Street Journal / September 8, 2023

Me and the Bentley

Lance Morrow

A car should be a costar, a romance, a myth—not a robot

Articles

City Journal / June 16, 2023

When Time’s ‘Man of the Year’ Meant Something

Lance Morrow

Subjects of the magazine’s annual story were once viewed as secular saints—or, on occasion, devils.

Articles

The Wall Street Journal / December 2, 2022

America’s Discord Looks Like a Job for the Superego

Lance Morrow

It’s hard to run a sane civilization in an atmosphere of political hysteria and hallucination.

Articles

The Wall Street Journal / November 14, 2022

MAGA Is to Woke as Errol Flynn Is to Henry Fonda

Lance Morrow

Watch ‘Captain Blood’ and ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ and ask yourself which movie speaks to your heart.

Articles

The Wall Street Journal / October 3, 2022

Biden’s Speech Had It All Backward

Lance Morrow

Biden’s Democrats seek a one-party state. Trump’s followers want freedom from government power.

Articles

Wall Street Journal / September 12, 2022

America’s Political Story Lines Need a Reboot

Lance Morrow

Our partisan narratives have become so detached from reality that they bode ill for the nation’s future.

Articles

The Wall Street Journal / August 14, 2022

Public Life Is Crazy, but Americans Aren’t

Lance Morrow

Politics and media are co-producers of the immense 21st-century moral circus.

Articles

The Wall Street Journal / July 28, 2022