Fareed Rafiq Zakaria (born 20 January 1964) is an Indian-American journalist, political commentator and author. He presents Fareed Zakaria GPS, a weekly programme on international affairs on CNN, and writes a column for The Washington Post. His books on democracy and the changing balance of world power have been international bestsellers.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Fareed Rafiq Zakaria |
| Born | 20 January 1964, Bombay (Mumbai), India |
| Age | 62 |
| Nationality | American (born Indian) |
| Education | Cathedral and John Connon School, Bombay; Yale University (B.A., 1986); Harvard University (Ph.D., 1993) |
| Occupation | Journalist, television host, author |
| Known for | Fareed Zakaria GPS (CNN); The Post-American World |
| Awards | Padma Bhushan (2010) |
| Children | 3 |
Early Life
He was born in Bombay into a Konkani Muslim family at the centre of the city’s public life. His father, Rafiq Zakaria, was a Congress politician, a minister in the Maharashtra government and a scholar of Islam. His mother, Fatima, was for many years the editor of the Sunday edition of The Times of India. Politicians, writers and artists were regular visitors to the house.
He was educated at the Cathedral and John Connon School.
Education
He went to Yale University on a scholarship at eighteen, where he was president of the Yale Political Union and took a degree in history. He then studied government at Harvard under Samuel Huntington and Stanley Hoffmann, receiving his doctorate in 1993.
Career
Editor
In 1992, at twenty-eight, he was appointed managing editor of Foreign Affairs, the leading American journal of international relations. In 2000 he became editor of Newsweek International and a columnist for the magazine. His essay “Why Do They Hate Us?”, published weeks after the attacks of 11 September 2001, was widely read. He moved to Time magazine as editor-at-large in 2010.
Television
After presenting a programme on public television, he launched Fareed Zakaria GPS, the letters standing for Global Public Square, on CNN in 2008. It combines interviews with heads of government and thinkers with his own commentary, and has won a Peabody Award.
Books
- From Wealth to Power (1998), from his doctoral thesis
- The Future of Freedom (2003): on “illiberal democracy”, a term he popularised for countries that hold elections without protecting liberties
- The Post-American World (2008): on “the rise of the rest”, the growth of China, India and others
- In Defense of a Liberal Education (2015)
- Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World (2020)
- Age of Revolutions (2024): on the backlash against rapid change, from the seventeenth century to the present
Views
He describes himself as a centrist. He supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and later called it a mistake.
Controversy
In 2012 he was briefly suspended by Time and CNN after a column was found to contain a passage closely following another writer’s work. He apologised, and both reinstated him after reviewing his other writing.
Recognition
India awarded him the Padma Bhushan in 2010 for his contribution to journalism. He has received honorary degrees from Harvard, Brown and other universities.
Personal Life
He became a citizen of the United States. He married Paula Throckmorton, a jewellery designer, in 1997; they have a son and two daughters, and divorced in 2018. He lives in New York. His brother, Arshad Zakaria, was a senior executive at Merrill Lynch.
Featured image: Fareed Zakaria at the Peabody Awards in New York, May 2012. Photo by Anders Krusberg / Peabody Awards, licensed under CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
