Simon Reid-Henry

Dr Simon Reid-Henry is an author and academic. He has written widely on international and political affairs. His current work examines the fault lines of our modern democracy. Simon is a recipient of the Leverhulme Prize and a Fellow of the RSA. He received his PhD from the University of Cambridge before becoming Associate Professor in the School of Geography at Queen Mary, University of London. He has held visiting positions in History at Columbia University in New York, at Macquarie University in Sydney, at the Norwegian Institute of Foreign Affairs and as Senior Researcher at the Peace Research Institute Oslo. Simon is co-convenor of London Inequality Studies and is research lead for democracy at the Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences. His writing can be found in The Guardian, New Statesman, The Economist, The Times, The Independent on Sunday, and the London Review of Books. He can be seen, both as expert and as critic, on radio and television and has advised and presented to governments internationally. Presently he is contributing to the UK Labour task force on international development and developing a European-wide network examining the transformation of popular sovereignty.

His previous books were each published to critical acclaim. Fidel and Che: A Revolutionary Friendship (Sceptre, 2009) was described by The Economist’s Intelligent Life magazine as “a lucid, pulsating study of not one but two huge figures” and was translated into seven languages. For the Journal of the American Medical Association, The Cuban Cure (Chicago University Press, 2010) “reads like a political thriller for intellectuals”. Shifting focus from the global South to the global North, his current writing goes to the heart of the twin crises of inequality and democracy. The Political Origins of Inequality was published by University of Chicago Press in December 2015: “an important book about big issues … it should change the terms of debate,” said Danny Dorling at Oxford University. Simon’s latest book, Empire of Democracy, is published by Simon & Schuster (US), John Murrays (UK), and Doubleday (Canada) in June 2019.

Simon grew up in Essex where his desire to explore the world was limited to forays by BMX along the Crouch estuary. Today he divides his time between London and Oslo, where he lives with his wife and two children. He hails from a family of well-known artists. In a fair and just world he would be a professional tennis player; as it is, he sits on the board of Njaard tennis. He can be found on twitter at @sreidhenry

His website is simonreidhenry.com