Jamie Holmes (author)


Jamie Holmes is an American author. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New Republic, Slate, among many other publications. Holmes has written two books. The first, Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing, was published by Penguin Random House in 2015 and explores the psychology of uncertainty. He is also the author of 12 Seconds of Silence: How a Team of Inventors, Tinkerers, and Spies Took Down a Nazi Superweapon, about the creation of the proximity fuse, which will be published in August, 2020 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Life and career

Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts and raised in Chicago and Boston, Holmes received his undergraduate degree from New York University in 2002. After college he served in the Peace Corps in Iași, Romania, teaching English, and worked as a Research Coordinator at Harvard University, where he focused on behavioral economics. In 2009, he received a Master of International Affairs from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. From 2009 to 2012, Holmes worked as a research associate, program associate, and policy analyst at New America. He is currently a Future Tense Fellow at New America and lives in Washington, D.C.
He is the son of political scientist Stephen Holmes.

Reception

Holmes received widespread attention for his 2011 article in the New Republic, "Why Can't More Poor People Escape Poverty," as well as for his 2015 Op-Ed in the New York Times, "The Case for Teaching Ignorance." His book Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing was reviewed favorably by the Washington Post, Kirkus Reviews, and New York Magazine, among other outlets.