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About the author
Alexander Cockburn (1941-2012) was the coeditor of CounterPunch and the author of a number of titles, including Corruptions of Empire, The Golden Age Is in Us, Washington Babylon (with Ken Silverstein) and Imperial Crusades. One of three brothers, all journalists, he is the son of the journalist and author Claud Cockburn. Born in Ireland and educated in Scotland and England, he moved to America in 1972, soon establishing himself as a radical reporter and commentator, writing for the Village Voice, the New York Review of Books, Esquire and Harpers. He also wrote regular columns for the Nation, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, New Statesman, and his influential newsletter CounterPunch. In 1991 he settled in Petrolia, a rural hamlet in Humboldt County, Northern California, where he remained until his death.Ken Silverstein is a Senior Investigative Reporter with First Look Media. He has been a Fellow at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard Univeristy and at Open Society Foundations. He served as Washington Editor of Harper's Magazine from 2006 to 2010. Previously on the staff of the Los Angeles Times, Silverstein has also written for Mother Jones, Wallpaper, Washington Monthly, the Nation, Slate, Salon, and many other publications. In 2005, he received the Overseas Press Club Award for a series, cowritten with T. Christian Miller, titled "The Politics of Petroleum" and published in the Los Angeles Times.
