Paul Rogat Loeb (born July 4, 1952)[1] is an American social and political activist.

Loeb was born in 1952 in Berkeley, California. He attended Stanford University and subsequently attended New York's New School for Social Research and worked actively to end the Vietnam War. He also began his writing and speaking career during this time.

Loeb's first book, Nuclear Culture, examined the daily life of atomic weapons workers at the Hanford Site in Tri-Cities, Washington. Hope In Hard Times portrayed ordinary Americans involved in grassroots peace activism.

He has also written books examining student activism at universities and the values of Gen X, and his book Soul of a Citizen aimed to inspire citizen activists. His book The Impossible Will Take a Little While, an anthology of the achievements of activists in history who faced and overcame enormous obstacles, was named the #4 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association[citation needed] and won the Nautilus Book Award for best social change book of the year[citation needed], was an independent bookstore bestseller[citation needed], and has 120,000 copies in print between two editions[citation needed]. Soul of a Citizen was released by St Martin's Press in 1999 and in a new and a wholly updated edition in 2010. It now has 170,000 copies in print between the two editions[citation needed].

Loeb has also written for a range of publications[citation needed] including the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, AARP Bulletin, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Psychology Today, Christian Science Monitor, Chronicle of Higher Education, Huffington Post, Redbook, Parents Magazine, Sojourners, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Baltimore Sun, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Detroit News, San Francisco Chronicle, St Louis Post-Dispatch, Tampa Tribune, National Catholic Reporter, Teaching Tolerance, and the International Herald Tribune.

He's been interviewed[citation needed] on NBC, CNN, PBS, Fox, and C-Span, National Public Radio, the BBC, the ABC, NBC, and CBS radio networks, American Urban Radio, Voice of America, and national German, Australian, and Canadian radio.

Loeb's work offers an often alternative look at current social issues, from poverty and taxation and budget priorities to criminal justice, environmentalism, and citizen activism. His writing has received much attention and been cited in Congressional debates. He has been interviewed hundreds of times for radio, TV and print media. He's also lectured at over 400 college campuses and numerous national conferences. He founded the Campus Election Engagement Project, a national nonpartisan effort to engage students in voting, and guides.vote, which created nonpartisan candidate guides for major elections. Loeb is also a featured commentator in the film Every Three Seconds, by Oscar shortlisted documentarian Daniel Karslake.

Loeb lives in Seattle and is married to writer Rebecca Hughes.

Bibliography

edit
  • Nuclear Culture (New Society Publishers, 1986)
  • Hope in Hard Times: America's Peace Movement and the Reagan Era (Lexington Books, 1986)
  • Generation at the Crossroads: Apathy and Action on the American Campus (Rutgers University Press, 1994)
  • Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time (St. Martin's Press, 1999)
  • The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear (Basic Books, 2004)

References

edit
  1. ^ Who's Who in the West 1996-1997 (Marquis Who's Who, 1995: ISBN 0-8379-0926-0), p. 516.
edit