Peter Van Buren

Peter Van Buren is the author of Hooper's War: A Novel of WWII Japan, and a 24-year veteran of the State Department.Following his first book, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, the Department of State began judicial proceedings against Van Buren, falsely claiming he exposed classified material. Through the efforts of the Government Accountability Project and the ACLU, Van Buren instead retired from the State Department on his own terms.Van Burens second book, Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the 99 Percent, traces the rise of the working poor and the destruction of the middle class. The novel tells the story of one Midwestern blue collar family across three generations, and foresaw the rise of someone like Donald Trump.Peters commentary has been featured in The New York Times, Reuters, Salon, NPR, Al Jazeera, Huffington Post, The Nation, TomDispatch.com, Antiwar.com, The American Conservative, Mother Jones, MichaelMoore.com, Le Monde, Asia Times, The Guardian, and others. He has appeared on the BBC, All Things ConsideredandFresh Air, Fox News, VICE, Japanese NHK, Democracy Now!, Voice of America, and more.