About the Author
Michael Grunwald is an award-winning journalist and best-selling author who has written about U.S. public policy and politics for three decades. A former staff writer for The Washington Post, Time, and Politico Magazine, he has won the George Polk Award for national reporting, the Worth Bingham Prize for investigative reporting, and many other prizes. He wrote a widely acclaimed book about the Everglades and Florida, The Swamp, and another about the Obama Administration’s economic policies, The New New Deal. Grunwald wrote the Post’s lead news story about the attacks of September 11, 2001, covered the last eight presidential campaigns, and has written magazine cover stories about everything from the failure of U.S. transportation policy to the marketing of Barack Obama to his own family’s daily reliance on the power of government.
Grunwald is best known for his coverage of climate change and the environment, and his newest book, We Are Eating the Earth, is a groundbreaking piece of reportage from the trenches of our next climate war: the fight to fix our food system. He argues that humanity now knows what to do about its energy and climate problem, and has even started to do it, though obviously not quickly enough; by contrast, it’s just started to recognize the magnitude of its food and climate problem, and seems to be pivoting from doing nothing about it to making it worse. He’s a provocative writer who often challenges conventional wisdom, and he tells a sometimes frustrating tale about bad politics, bad ideas, and bad science. But it’s also an often hopeful account of the brilliant researchers and entrepreneurs devising new ways to produce more food with less land and less damage, so we can stop the relentless expansion of farmland into nature and feed the world without frying the world.
In his keynotes, Grunwald discusses how we can save the planet for ourselves and future generations—through better policy, technology, and behavior, as well as a new land ethic that recognizes the importance of every acre. His special sauce is explaining the complexities of policies in entertaining, easy-to-understand, and often unexpected ways, and his Washington experience gives him special insight into the fate of the climate and nature in the second Trump Administration. He’s also comfortable speaking about politics, economics, infrastructure, and financial crises—and he’s one of the leading experts on Florida, where he lives in Miami with his wife, his two children, and his three deranged dogs.
Raves and Reviews
Praise for We Are Eating the Earth
We Are Eating the Earth is a savory, science-salted meal of provocative thinking about food. Grunwald investigates what we eat, how we grow it, and why getting better at it is key to addressing the climate crisis. It’s a wildly ambitious undertaking, but Grunwald pulls it off because he’s fearless and funny and knows his stuff. If you want to save the planet, read We Are Eating the Earth.”
—Jeff Goodell, New York Times bestselling author of The Heat Will Kill You First
Michael Grunwald never follows the crowd. Instead, he digs deep and finds actual, uncomfortable, and, yes, correct answers. We Are Eating the Earth tackles the complexity of our food and climate problems with captivating storytelling, and no agenda but our survival. Knowledge is about to be dropped. Pay attention.”
—Brad Meltzer, bestselling author of The JFK Conspiracy
The quest to feed humanity’s voracious appetites is consuming ever more land around the world. We Are Eating the Earth is an indispensable guide to the thorniest problem in global economics and environmental policy—an issue that most advocates ignore, but that we urgently need to face if we want to have any hope of solving it.”
—Matthew Yglesias, author of One Billion Americans
Food is now as big a climate challenge as oil, and We Are Eating the Earth is the most vivid and inspiring reckoning with this wicked problem written in this age of climate crisis.”
—David Wallace-Wells, New York Times bestselling author of The Uninhabitable Earth
Praise for The New New Deal
The New New Deal is the most interesting book that has been published about the Obama administration.”
—The Economist
Exceptional…The single best book on the inner workings of the Obama administration. … Grunwald points out how everything you think you know about the stimulus is wrong.”
—The Guardian
The New New Deal is not only the best book about the administration and its challenges, but … one of the two best books ever written about government.”
—The National Memo
Grunwald peppers this Washington drama with dialogue and characters in action, which makes it a rollicking good read.”
—US News
Engrossing … It is a full detailed, careful argument, based on detailed, careful reporting.”
—The New York Review of Books
Michael Grunwald is one of our generation’s most original and tireless journalists—a reporter who is allergic to received wisdom, a writer with an uncommon talent for illuminating hidden truths. So it is a delight, but not a surprise, that The New New Deal demolishes cliches and vividly reframes our thinking about President Obama and his stimulus package through a gripping narrative.”
—John Harris, Politico
Praise for The Swamp
This is a wonderfully written, provocative, and important book. It combines history and investigative journalism to explore not only the Everglades but the larger tensions of a society’s relationship with the environment. It’s also a riveting story, the definitive account of south Florida’s incredible journey from marshland to man-made megalopolis.”
—John Barry, author of Rising Tide and The Great Influenza
The Swamp is the best thing I’ve ever read about the Everglades. The story of what’s happened to this haunted and magical wilderness has the epic ingredients of a great novel — greed, betrayal, carnage, and valor — and Michael Grunwald has beautifully captured it all for history.”
—Carl Hiaasen
Mr. Grunwald, a terrific writer, moves along at a cracking pace.”
—William Grimes, The New York Times
A grand, violent, picaresque history…This book serves up 500 years of bloody, mostly foolish, rarely noble, but always entertaining human antics.”
—Guy Martin, The New York Times Book Review
Magnificent…This definitive history reads as quickly as a good magazine article.”
—Michael Browning, The Palm Beach Post
A superb narrative…Grunwald writes with verve and wit.”
—David Fleshler, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Grunwald blends exhaustive research and superlative prose into a book as valuable as a week in Fort Lauderdale, at one-hundredth the price.”
—Andy Solomon, The Boston Globe
