Thanassis Cambanis
Adjunct Professor of International and Public Affairs
Personal Details
Focus areas: Arab politics, U.S. foreign policy in Middle East, media coverage of conflict, MENA
Thanassis Cambanis is an author, journalist and senior fellow at The Century Foundation, who specializes in the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy. He is co-director of the foundations initiatives on Arab Politics and Citizenship and Inclusion in the MENA region. His most recent book, Once Upon A Revolution: An Egyptian Story (Simon and Schuster: 2015), chronicles Egyptian efforts to create a new political order. His first book, A Privilege to Die: Inside Hezbollah’s Legions and Their Endless War Against Israel, was published in 2010. He contributes regularly to The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Boston Globe, Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, and other publications.
He teaches “Writing About War” at SIPA, and has led Capstone Workshops on Islamist political movements and U.S. policy on terrorist designations, with various think tank clients. He has also taught at the New School’s Graduate Program in International Affairs in New York City and as a Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University.He obtained his bachelor’s degree in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his master’s in public affairs from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School.
Education
- BA, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- MPA, Princeton University
In The Media
A recent court verdict in Germany offers some cause for muted satisfaction, but it also raises an important question about why so little is left of the cause of universal justice for war criminals. Thanassis Cambanis writes on the issue.
The Middle East’s politics cannot address a slow-moving transnational crisis like climate change, even though it affects everyone in the region, representing a more extreme version of current collective action problems, says Thanassis Cambanis.
Thanassis Cambanis writes on the possibility of a transition in Iraq following the election.