Biographical articles about Daniel Pipes

Items are listed in reverse order of date

• Information & Articles about President Bush's nomination
  of Daniel Pipes to the U.S. Institute of Peace

Biographical Sketch of Daniel Pipes

Daniel Pipes is president of the Middle East Forum. His bi-weekly column appears regularly in the National Review and in newspapers around the globe, including the Jerusalem Post (Israel), La Razón (Spain), Liberal (Italy), National Post (Canada), and the Australian..

His website, DanielPipes.org, offers an archive of his work and an opportunity to sign up to receive e-mails of his current writings. With 64 million page visits, it is of the Internet's most accessed sources of specialized information on the Middle East and Muslim history.

CBS Sunday Morning says Daniel Pipes was "years ahead of the curve in identifying the threat of radical Islam." "Unnoticed by most Westerners," he wrote, for example, in 1995, "war has been unilaterally declared on Europe and the United States." The Boston Globe states that "If Pipes's admonitions had been heeded, there might never have been a 9/11." The Wall Street Journal calls Mr. Pipes "an authoritative commentator on the Middle East" and the Washington Post deems him both "a prominent conservative intellectual" and "perhaps the most prominent U.S. scholar on radical Islam."

He received his A.B. (1971) and Ph.D. (1978) from Harvard University, both in history, and spent six years studying abroad, including three years in Egypt. Mr. Pipes speaks French, and reads Arabic and German. He has taught at Harvard, Pepperdine, the U.S. Naval War College, and the University of Chicago. He has been affiliated with Princeton and Stanford universities. He served in various capacities in the U.S. government, including two presidentially-appointed positions, vice chairman of the Fulbright Board of Foreign Scholarships and board member of the U.S. Institute of Peace. He was director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute in 1986-93.

Mr. Pipes discusses current issues on television on such U.S. programs as ABC World News, Crossfire, Good Morning America, News-Hour with Jim Lehrer, Nightline, O'Reilly Factor, and The Today Show. He has appeared on leading television networks around the globe, including the BBC and Al-Jazeera, and has lectured in twenty-five countries. He has publicly debated leading figures, including Noam Chomsky and Ken Livingstone.

Mr. Pipes has published in such magazines as the Atlantic Monthly, Commentary, Foreign Affairs, Harper's, National Review, New Republic, Time, and The Weekly Standard. More than a hundred American newspapers have carried his articles, including the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. His writings have been translated into 37 languages and have appeared in such newspapers as ABC, Corriere della Sera, The Daily Telegraph, Le Figaro, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, and The Sydney Morning Herald.

Mr. Pipes has written twelve books.

Four deal with Islam: Militant Islam Reaches America (2002), The Rushdie Affair (Birch Lane, 1990), In the Path of God (Basic Books, 1983), and Slave Soldiers and Islam (Yale University Press, 1981).

Three books concern Syria: Syria Beyond the Peace Process (1996), Damascus Courts the West (Washington Institute, 1991), and Greater Syria (Oxford University Press, 1990).

Four deal with other Middle Eastern topics: The Hidden Hand (St. Martin's, 1996) analyzes conspiracy theories among Arabs and Iranians. An Arabist's Guide to Colloquial Egyptian (Foreign Service Institute, 1983) systematizes the grammar of Arabic as spoken in Egypt. The Long Shadow (Transaction, 1989) and Miniatures (2003) contain some of his best essays.

Conspiracy (Free Press 1997) establishes the importance of conspiracy theories in modern Europe and America.

Mr. Pipes edited two collections of essays, Sandstorm (UPA, 1993) and Friendly Tyrants (St. Martin's, 1991). He has edited two journals, Orbis (1986-90) and the Middle East Quarterly (1994-2001).

Mr. Pipes sits on five editorial boards, has testified before many congressional committees, and worked on five presidential campaigns. Universities in the United States and Switzerland have conferred honorary degrees on him.

Mr. Pipes takes pride in having been Borked by Edward Kennedy, called an "Orientalist" by Edward Said, deemed the neo-conservative movement's "leading thinker" by Egypt's Al-Ahram newspaper, and publicly invited to convert by a leading Al-Qaeda figure. He has also been recognized as one of Harvard University's 100 most influential living graduates and is listed in Marquis Who's Who in the World.

Mr. Pipes founded the Middle East Forum (MEForum.org), an independent 501(c)3 organization, in 1994. The Forum has a nearly US$4 million budget. Its mission is "promoting American interests" through publications, research, media outreach, and public education. It publishes the Middle East Quarterly and sponsors Campus Watch, Islamist Watch, the Legal Project, and the Washington Project.

(Click here for a Word document with talking points to introduce Daniel Pipes.)

Updated December 2011

Information about Daniel Pipes' recent talks at universities.

Click on the thumbnails below to see larger-sized
photos of Daniel Pipes, suitable for printing:

Photographs copyrighted © by Daniel Pipes