About the Author

About the Author

Andrew Bard Schmookler is a prize-winning author, op/ed columnist, speaker, radio talk-show host, and former Democratic nominee for Congress in Virginia.

For more than fifty years, his work has developed an integrative vision of the forces — especially the problematic forces — that have shaped the human world since the rise of civilization.

Books and Other Major Writings

Books

  • The Parable of the Tribes: The Problem of Power in Social Evolution (University of California Press, 1984; Houghton Mifflin, 1986; 2nd ed. SUNY Press, 1995), winner of the Erikson Prize, still in print.
  • Out of Weakness: Healing the Wounds that Drive Us to War (Bantam Books, 1988).
  • Sowings and Reapings: The Cycling of Good and Evil in the Human System (Knowledge Systems, 1989).
  • The Illusion of Choice: How the Market Economy Shapes Our Destiny (SUNY Press, 1993; translations in Japan and Korea).
  • Fool’s Gold: The Fate of Values in a World of Goods (HarperCollins, 1993).
  • Debating the Good Society: A Quest to Bridge America’s Moral Divide (MIT Press, 1999).
  • What We’re Up Against: The Destructive Force at Work in Our World — and How We Can Defeat It (2015).

Major Series

  • Press the Battle (2014): a series of essays confronting America’s growing political crisis.
  • A Better Human Story (2017): an unfolding series articulating Schmookler’s integrative vision of the dynamics shaping civilization.
  • The Fateful Step (2022): a continuation of that vision, clarifying the nature of the challenge human civilization must meet if it is to survive on this planet for the long haul.

Journalism and Commentary

For decades, Schmookler’s columns have appeared in newspapers across the country, including the Baltimore Sun, the Christian Science Monitor, and the San Francisco Chronicle.

For the past decade, his weekly op/eds have been published in several newspapers serving Virginia’s conservative 6th District — perhaps the only liberal voice in America consistently and challengingly addressing Conservative America.
In 2023, the Northern Virginia Daily nominated these columns for the Pulitzer Prize in Commentary.

A number of these writings are gathered here under the heading
Messages to the Conservatives.

Confronting America’s Crisis

Having seen clearly in 2004 the dangerous forces rising in America to threaten our democracy, Schmookler launched
NoneSoBlind.org in 2005 to sound the alarm.

In 2011–12, he ran for Congress in Virginia’s very conservative 6th District as the Democratic nominee.
His campaign motto was “Truth. For a change.” One six-minute speech went viral nationwide.

Earlier Foundations

  • Academic: Schmookler graduated summa cum laude in Social Relations from Harvard College in 1967.
    He earned his Ph.D. in 1977 at the University of California, Berkeley and the Graduate Theological Union, in a program created to accommodate his comprehensive theory of human history.
    A more concise version of the ideas developed in his 1,600-page dissertation was later published as The Parable of the Tribes.
  • Recognition: He received the Erik H. Erikson Prize from the International Society for Political Psychology in 1984, and in 1985 was named by Esquire magazine as one of “the men and women under forty who are changing the nation.”
  • Policy work: At the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C., Schmookler served on the “Global Problems and Opportunities Group,” helping prepare assessments of international contingencies for the U.S. Congress and the President.
  • Radio: As a talk-show host in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley in the 1990s, he conducted many hundreds of hours of mutually respectful dialogue with conservative callers — a rare example of constructive political conversation across divides.

Personal

Schmookler is married, the father of three grown children, and grandfather of three.

What Others Have Said

  • “One of the great intellectual integrators of the 20th century.” — Joseph Montville, senior diplomat and scholar, George Mason University
  • “A brilliant moral philosopher with his ear to the ground is just the debate coach the country needs.” — Jack Miles, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of God: A Biography
  • “One of the foremost interpreters of our time.” — John Dillenberger, professor of Historical Theology, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley
  • “Dr. Schmookler has demonstrated time and again his ability to bridge the gaps between specialists… and to draw persuasive conclusions with eloquence.” — Penelope Hartland-Thunberg, senior economist, CSIS
  • “His intelligence is both subtle and wide-ranging… a man of enormous talents and resources.” — Robert Bellah, eminent sociologist, University of California, Berkeley

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