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.
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 Time, Smithsonian, The New York Times, The 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.
Christmas in the Midst
Lance Morrow
Estrangement has become a theme on all political sides—a psychology of exile even in one’s own country.
Articles
City Journal / December 24, 2021
An Age of Violated Boundaries
Lance Morrow
The obliteration of boundaries and norms in the 21st century has released powerful energies that are sometimes creative, sometimes destructive, and often merely bizarre.
Articles
The Wall Street Journal / November 10, 2021
The Woke, Elvis and America’s Great Awakenings
Lance Morrow
This isn’t the first time in history that a wave of youthful righteousness has tried to transform America.
Articles
The Wall Street Journal / October 17, 2021
Race and Friendship at Harvard, 1963
Lance Morrow
“The Last Negroes at Harvard” is a wary, complicated, handsomely judicious book smoldering with a racial grievance that is both soothed and exacerbated by the condescension and privilege that Harvard lavished on the author and the 17 other black students.
Articles
The Wall Street Journal / October 8, 2021
Not That Long Ago, ‘Evil’ Really Meant Something
Lance Morrow
Progressives now see no difference between history’s monsters and people they don’t like on TV.
Articles
The Wall Street Journal / September 26, 2021
Two Decades of War in Afghanistan
Lance Morrow
The 20 years since 9/11 have produced two tragic outcomes: Afghanistan has reverted to the Taliban, and—unexpectedly—America has disappeared down a rabbit hole. Barbarism, in different forms, is on the march in both countries.
Articles
City Journal / September 9, 2021
You Are Living in the Golden Age of Stupidity
Lance Morrow
The convergence of many seemingly unrelated elements has produced an explosion of brainlessness.
Articles
The Wall Street Journal / August 29, 2021
‘Kicking Jim Jordan’ Isn’t Healthy—Even at the Gym
Lance Morrow
A lurid fantasy of political violence at a fancy exercise class for nice people: This is the way we live now.
Articles
The Wall Street Journal / August 4, 2021
The Hedgehogs of Critical Race Theory
Lance Morrow
They start with important truths—slavery was wicked—and get carried away into monomania.
Articles
The Wall Street Journal / July 19, 2021
Can Freedom Survive the Narratives?
Lance Morrow
The Age of Information is the era of hysterical story lines. Twenty-first-century technology supercharges feelings, not thoughts, and registers them instantaneously on hundreds of millions of screens and minds. Such narratives serve neither history nor justice.
Articles
The Wall Street Journal / May 17, 2021