John H. McWhorter, contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal, writes and comments extensively on race, ethnicity and cultural issues for the Manhattan Institute. His Book, All About the Beat: Why Hip Hop Can't Save Black America (Gotham Books), pointed beyond the empty gestures of the "hip-hop revolution" to a brave new politics for Black America, calling for a renewed sense of purpose and pride in black communities.
John McWhorter is also the author of the New York Times best seller Losing the Race (Harper Perennial), and an anthology of race writings, Authentically Black (Gotham Books). McWhorter's book, Winning the Race: Beyond the Crisis in Black America (Gotham Books) generated widespread acclaim. He was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Non-Fiction and has appeared numerous national TV and radio shows, such as Meet the Press, John McLaughlin's One on One, The O'Reilly Factor, and NPR's Fresh Air. McWhorter is also a well-known and widely published linguistics scholar. McWhorter's work on race and cultural issues has appeared in leading publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, The National Review, City Journal, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and New York Magazine.
In addition, McWhorter is a noted linguist and the author of The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language, on how the world's languages arise, change, and mix, and Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation of Language and Music in America and Why We Should, Like, Care. He has also written a book on dialects and Black English, The Word on the Street, and three books on Creole languages. The Teaching Company has released two 36-lecture audiovisual courses of his. His latest academic book on linguistics is Why Does a Language Undress? and Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue, was published in 2008.
John McWhorter earned his PhD in linguistics from Stanford University in 1993 and became Associate Professor of Linguistics at UC Berkeley after teaching at Cornell University.
