Steve Inskeep’s Bio
Steve Inskeep is a cohost of NPR’s Morning Edition, the most widely heard radio program in the United States, and of NPR’s Up First,one of the nation’s most popular podcasts.
On days of bad news, Inskeep is inspired by the Langston Hughes book, Laughing to Keep From Crying. Of hosting Morning Edition during the 2008 financial crisis and Great Recession, he told Nuvo magazine when “the whole world seemed to be falling apart, it was especially important for me … to be amused, even if I had to be cynically amused, about the things that were going wrong. Laughter is a sign that you’re not defeated.”
Inskeep is the author of Instant City: Life and Death in Karachi, a 2011 book on one of the world’s great megacities. He is also author of Jacksonland, a history of President Andrew Jackson’s long-running conflict with John Ross, a Cherokee chief who resisted the removal of Indians from the eastern United States in the 1830’s. Imperfect Union, recounts the adventures Jessie and John Frémont, an ambitious American couple before the Civil War.
He has been a guest on numerous TV programs including ABC’s This Week, NBC’s Meet the Press, MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, CNN’s Inside Politics and the PBS Newhour. He has written for publications including The New York Times, Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and The Atlantic.
Known for probing questions to everyone from presidents to warlords to musicians, Inskeep has a passion for stories of the less famous—like an American soldier who lost both feet in Afghanistan, or an Ethiopian woman’s extraordinary journey to the United States.
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Steve Inskeep’s latest book is Differ We Must, recounts how Lincoln succeeded in a divided America. Read about the book >
“Abraham Lincoln, America’s greatest president, comes freshly alive in Steve Inskeep’s brilliant rendering of his interactions with many individuals, famous and obscure, of varied backgrounds and viewpoints. Inskeep’s Lincoln is flexible, witty, and wise–sometimes cagey but always rock-solid in his principles. Differ We Must is a read-we-must in a time when America is almost as divided as it was in Lincoln’s era.”
—David S. Reynolds, author of Abe: Abraham Lincoln in His Times
