Richard V. Reeves | |
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| Born | (1969-07-04)July 4, 1969 (age 56) Peterborough, United Kingdom |
| Pen name | Richard Thomas[1] |
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| Nationality | British, American |
| Alma mater | Wadham College, Oxford (BA) University of Warwick (PhD) |
| Subject | History, philosophy,liberal politics |
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| www | |
Richard Vaughan Reeves (born 4 July 1969)[1] is a British-American writer and social scientist. He is a Senior Fellow at theBrookings Institution and President of the American Institute for Boys and Men.[2][3]
Reeves was born inPeterborough, United Kingdom.[4] He was educated in geography atWadham College, Oxford.[2] He later received aPh.D. from theUniversity of Warwick.[5]
Reeves has held positions including Director of Futures atThe Work Foundation, a British non-profit organisation, Society Editor ofThe Observer, Economics Correspondent and Washington Correspondent ofThe Guardian, policy adviser toFrank Field when he was Minister for Welfare Reform, and director of the London-basedthink tankDemos.
In summer 2010 Reeves left Demos, joining the office of Deputy Prime MinisterNick Clegg, aLiberal Democrat, as a Special Advisor.[6] Until 2012 Reeves was Director of Strategy to Nick Clegg.[7]
In 2012 Reeves urged the Liberal Democrats to choose to become aradical centrist political party, "a hard-driving radical liberal party of the political centre", continuing his campaign for centre left Liberal Democrats to leave, "Any attempt to position the Liberal Democrats as a party of the centre left after five years of austerity government in partnership with the Conservatives will be laughed out of court by the voters – and rightly so. Anybody who wants a centre-left party will find a perfectly acceptable one inLabour. The Liberal Democrats need centrist voters, "softTories", ex-Blairites,greens".[8]
Reeves was Director of the Future of the Middle Class Initiative at Brookings, working principally on issues related tointergenerational mobility, inequality and social change. In 2014, he published a Brookings Essay,SavingHoratio Alger, along with a video in which he used Lego bricks to illustrate levels ofsocial mobility in the U.S. In May 2014, he appeared in aDaily Show segment satirizing how the complaints about the plight of the poorer members of the top 1% distracts from solutions to social mobility.
Reeves has published four books, includingJohn Stuart Mill: Victorian Firebrand (2007),[9] a biography of the British liberal philosopher and politician,Happy Mondays (2002) about job satisfaction,[10] andOf Boys And Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It (2022).[11] He co-authoredThe 80 Minute MBA (2009) with John Knell, a condensedbusiness management book.[12]
Reeves appears regularly on radio and television as a political commentator and writes for a variety of publications includingThe New York Times,The Atlantic,The Guardian andThe Observer. He is also a regular contributor to the online 'Think Tank' section ofThe Wall Street Journal. In 2005, he co-presented the four-partBBC2 series,MakingSlough Happy.[13] He writes regularly in British newspapers and magazines[14] on politics, well-being,[15] work and character.[16] In 2008 he argued inThe Guardian that social-liberals [a majority of Lib Dem members] should not be involved with the Liberal Democrats, but the Labour Party.[17]
In June 2017, Reeves published a widely circulated[18]New York Times op-ed, "Stop Pretending You're Not Rich".[4]
Reeves's 2017 book isDream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class Is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That Is a Problem, and What to Do about It.[19][20][21]
In 2022, Reeves publishedOf Boys and Men,[22] whichDavid Brooks ofThe New York Times described as a “landmark” work.[23] The book was named as one of the best books of the year byThe Economist[24][25] andThe New Yorker.[26] InThe New Yorker, Idrees Kahloon wrote, “Reeves offers a wide menu of policies designed to foster a ‘prosocial masculinity for a postfeminist world.’”[27] Former PresidentBarack Obama includedOf Boys and Men on his list of recommended “great books” in August 2024.[28]
Reeves’s work has also drawn criticism. Some argue that the issues he addresses in education, employment, and family life are broad societal problems rather than specifically male ones.Michelle Goldberg ofThe New York Times wrote, “Dismissive of partisanship, Reeves elides the political and economic decisions that have made American life brutal, in different but overlapping ways, for women and men both.”[29]Matthew Yglesias noted that “Reeves is focused on ‘boy solutions,’ but even here it’s often a little unclear how much sex really matters.”[30] Conservative critics have taken issue with his relatively muted focus on marriage as a solution for men’s challenges, with one commentator arguing that “he implies that what fathers teach can be decoupled from their role as husband.”[31]
In 2023, Reeves delivered a TED talk titled “How to solve the education crisis for boys and men”[32] and produced several videos with Big Think, including “Male Inequality”[33] and “The Friendship Recession,”[34] the latter winning a Webby Award in 2024.[35] That same year, he established the American Institute for Boys and Men,[36][37] a think tank dedicated to “shaping policy and public conversation with reliable, non-partisan research.”[38]
Reeves is adual citizen, having been naturalized in October 2016 as anAmerican citizen. As of 2018[update], he lives inMaryland.[39]
I am now as of last October a US citizen. In fact, I became a US citizen the last day in my state. I live in Maryland where you had to become a citizen in order to register to vote in the presidential election, and I was determined to cast my vote.
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