James Surowiecki
American journalist
James Michael Surowiecki ( SOOR-oh-WIK-ee; born April 30, 1967) is an American journalist. He was a staff writer at The New Yorker, where he wrote a regular column on business and finance called "The Financial Page".
Background
Surowiecki was born in Meriden, Connecticut, and spent several childhood years in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, where he received a junior high-school education from Southwestern Educational Society (SESO). He is a 1984 graduate of Choate Rosemary Hall and a 1988 alumnus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a Morehead Scholar. Surowiecki pursued PhD studies in American history on a Mellon Fellowship at Yale University from 1988 to 1995, but did not complete them. In 1995, he founded the now-defunct e-magazine Rogue and began a career in journalism. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut, and is married to The Yale Review editor Meghan O'Rourke.
Career
Surowiecki's writing has appeared in a wide range of publications, including The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Motley Fool, Foreign Affairs, Artforum, Wired, MIT Technology Review, and Slate.
Before joining The New Yorker, he wrote “The Bottom Line” column for New York magazine and was a contributing editor at Fortune.
He got his start on the Internet when he was hired from graduate school by Motley Fool co-founder David Gardner to be the Fool's editor-in-chief of its culture site on America Online, entitled "Rogue" (1995–1996).
The public source identifies “James Surowiecki” as american journalist. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around James, Surowiecki and American.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “James Surowiecki”, the useful work is to connect “american journalist” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1496028. VIAF identifies the subject as 118060012. The Library of Congress control number is n2002110957. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1967, 1984, 1988 and 1995.
A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “James Surowiecki”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow James Surowiecki primary sources, James Surowiecki archive and James research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “James Surowiecki”?
- Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “James Surowiecki” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.