Susan Jacoby (born 1946[1]) is an American author. Her 2008 book about American anti-intellectualism, The Age of American Unreason, was a New York Times best seller. She is an atheist and secularist. Jacoby graduated from Michigan State University in 1965. She lives in New York City and is program director of the New York branch of the Center for Inquiry.[2]
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Jacoby, who began her career as a reporter for The Washington Post, has been a contributor to a wide variety of national publications, including The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The American Prospect, Mother Jones, The Nation, Glamour, and the AARP Bulletin and AARP Magazine. She is currently a panelist for "On Faith," a Washington Post-Newsweek blog on religion. As a young reporter she lived for two years in the USSR.
Her book Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism was named a notable book of 2004 by The Washington Post and The New York Times.[3] It was also named an Outstanding International Book of the Year by the Times Literary Supplement (London) and The Guardian. Wild Justice: The Evolution of Revenge (1984) was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.[2] Jacoby also won an Alicia Patterson Journalism Fellowship [4] in 1974 to research and write about the new Americans: immigration into the U.S.
Her book Half-Jew: A Daughter's Search for Her Family's Buried Past (2000) explores her partial Jewish roots. Raised in a Roman Catholic home, Jacoby did not learn of her father's Jewish roots until she was in her early '20s.[5]
Jacoby has argued that the idea of anti-Catholicism being a significant force in American life today is a canard, perpetrated by theologically and politically right-wing Roman Catholics and aimed at anyone who stands up to the Church's continuing attempts to impose its values on all Americans.[6]
She is currently a member of the advisory board of the Secular Coalition for America,[7] a national lobbying organization representing the interests of secular Americans.
In February 2010 she was named to the Freedom From Religion Foundation's Honorary Board of distinguished achievers.[8] Also in 2010, she was awarded The Richard Dawkins Award by Atheist Alliance International.