Ms. Cobban is a veteran writer,
researcher, and program organizer on global affairs. She contributed a regular column on global issues to
The
Christian Science Monitor from 1990 until the paper stopped
having regular columnists in 2007
. She is a 'Friend in Washington' with the
Washington, DC-based Friends Committee on National Legislation and a
Contributing Editor of
Boston
Review. Since 2003 she has published
"Just
World News", a lively blog on international issues that has gained a broad international readership.
In May 2008, Ms. Cobban published her seventh book,
Re-engage! America and the World After
Bush. Congressman Lee
Hamilton, Co-chair of the Iraq Study Group, described
it as, "An impassioned, thought-provoking, and accessible
brief from a highly esteemed journalist on how all of us - as
individuals - can act
to help better our country and world." More information about the book is available at
www.re-engage.net.
Her previous books include:
- Amnesty
after Atrocity?: Healing Nations after Genocide and War Crimes
(Paradigm, 2006.)
- The Moral Architecture of World Peace: Nobel Laureates Discuss
our
Global Future (University Press of Virginia, 2000.)
- Four books on Middle Eastern diplomacy, politics, and society,
including most recently The
Israeli-Syrian Peace Talks: 1991-96 and Beyond (U.S.
Institute of Peace, 2000.)
Born in England in 1952, Ms. Cobban received her B.A. and M.A. from
Oxford University. From 1974 through 1981, she worked as a
Beirut-based correspondent for print and broadcast outlets that included
The Christian Science Monitor, and
The
Sunday Times of London. Since 1982, she has lived primarily
in the United States, though her work has taken her back to the Middle
East (many times), and to many parts of Europe, Africa, and Asia.
Ms. Cobban has published widely in other
print media on three continents. She has considerable experience in
broadcast media: she worked as a reporter for ABC News and
the BBC in the
1970s and has been a guest on many leading radio and broadcast
discussion shows in the U.S. She sits on the Middle East Advisory
Committee of Human Rights Watch and is one of two Quakers who are
members of the London-based International Institute for Strategic
Studies. She speaks French and Arabic, and currently
divides her time
between Washington DC and Charlottesville, Virginia.