Nina Munk

Canadian-American journalist and non-fiction author

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Nina Munk (born 1967) is a Canadian-American journalist and non-fiction author. She is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair,[1] and the author or co-author of four books, including The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty[2] and Fools Rush In: Jerry Levin, Steve Case, and the Unmaking of Time Warner.[3] As well, she is the editor of the critical English translation of How It Happened: Documenting the Tragedy of Hungarian Jewry, an influential account of the Holocaust in Hungary written by Ernő Munkácsi in 1947.[4] According to Publishers Marketplace, Munk is working on a new book for Alfred A. Knopf titled In My Dreams, We Are Together about "her family in Hungary during the Holocaust".[5]

## Background[edit]

Munk was born in Canada to the entrepreneur and philanthropist Peter Munk and University of Toronto professor Linda Munk.[6] She spent her childhood in Switzerland's Berner Oberland before moving to Toronto for high school. She received a B.A. in comparative literature from Smith College[7] in 1988, an M.A. in French literature and language from Middlebury College in 1989, and, in 1992, an M.S. with honors from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism where she was awarded the Philip Greer Memorial Scholarship for outstanding business and financial journalism. Munk is married to the artist Peter Soriano, with whom she owns a townhouse in New York City.[8]

## Career[edit]

Munk was the 2020-2021 John and Constance Birkelund Fellow at the New York Public Library's Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, where she worked on "a book of narrative nonfiction set against the backdrop of the Holocaust in Hungary."[9] The book has since been purchased by Alfred A. Knopf in the U.S. and Faber and Faber in the U.K.[10] In an interview, Munk stated that the idea for the book came to her as her father was dying and she began cataloging the family's archives: "I understood how absolutely fascinating the story is and how much more I needed to know. Above all, I understood that this is not a story just about my family; it’s a story about countless Hungarian Jewish families.... It was part of a long process of trying to decide what responsibility you have, as the caretaker of these archives, to make sure the story stays alive. What responsibility do you have to history, to future generations, to scholars?"[11]

Munk's work has appeared in Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Forbes, and Fortune. Before joining Vanity Fair as a contributing editor, she was a senior writer at Fortune and a senior editor at Forbes. Among other honors, she has won three Business Journalist of the Year Awards and three Front Page Awards. Her article "Rich Harvard, Poor Harvard", published in Vanity Fair, was nominated for a Gerald Loeb Award and was included in two published collections, The Great Hangover: 21 Tales of the New Recession from the Pages of Vanity Fair and Schools for Scandal: The Inside Dramas at 16 of America's Most Elite Campuses.[12]

Munk's 2013 book The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty received a great deal of attention[13] for its critical exploration of our "well-intentioned but ultimately naive theories about ending poverty in Africa,"[14] to quote Publishers Weekly. Even before it was published, the book was the subject of Joe Nocera's New York Times column in which he noted that Munk's reporting "caused her to become disillusioned, and humbled, by the difficulties that any Western aid effort is likely to encounter."[15]

The Idealist has been named a finalist for the National Business Book Award and the 2013 Governor General's Awards, and longlisted for the Lionel Gelber Prize. It was selected as a "Book of the Year" by The Spectator,[16] Forbes,[17] Bloomberg,[18] and Amazon.ca,[19] and has received overwhelmingly positive reviews. In his review, Bill Gates remarks: "I've told everyone at our foundation that I think it is worth taking the time to read it. It's a valuable—and, at times, heartbreaking—cautionary tale."[20] Foreign Policy magazine recognized The Idealist with a 2013 Albie Award, remarking: "Writing accessibly about development economics is a high-wire act, but Munk accomplishes it brilliantly."[21] In the Wall Street Journal, James Traub refers to Munk's "impressive persistence, unflagging empathy and journalistic derring-do", citing the depth of her on-the-ground reporting in rural Africa.[22] The economist William Easterly, reviewing the book for Barron's, calls it "one of the most readable and evocative accounts of foreign aid ever written,"[23] while Howard W. French describes The Idealist as "a devastating portrait of hubris and its consequences."[24] However, some reviewers, while complimenting Munk's "lively and at times, quite funny book," have argued that her portrayal of Sachs is overly critical—she is, to quote Erika Fry's review in Fortune, "a bit hard on Sachs."[25] Sachs himself has reportedly been dismissive of the book.[26] On his WNYC radio show, Brian Lehrer suggests that Ms. Munk is overreaching when she concludes that foreign aid has been more harmful than good.[27]

Munk's book about the merger of AOL and Time Warner, Fools Rush In: Jerry Levin, Steve Case, and the Unmaking of AOL Time Warner, was published by HarperCollins in 2004, one of several books that year about the ill-fated business deal. The New York Times Review of Books called it "the best [book] so far" on the subject of AOL Time Warner, noting Munk's "exemplary reporting" and "lively, lucid writing."[28] The book continues to be cited as "a cautionary tale on New Media’s last revolution," to quote MSNBC's Joe Scarborough.[29] David Carr wrote: "Of all the journalists who wrote obits for the dot-com mania, few did it with the precision and quiet glee of Nina Munk."[30]

In 2008, Munk co-wrote The Art of Clairtone: The Making of Design Icon, a coffee-table book about the celebrated Canadian stereo manufacturer Clairtone Sound Corporation, a company co-founded by her father in 1958.[31] Archival photographs, documents, and artifacts gathered for and used in The Art of Clairtone were displayed in an exhibition about Clairtone at the Design Exchange museum in 2008.[32] In 2024, the filmmaker Ron Mann announced that he is working on a feature-length documentary about Clairtone, based on Munk's book.[33]

As a sideline to her journalism career, Munk founded UrbanHound.com, a website for dog owners, in 2000.[34] The website led to two spin-off books: Urbanhound: The New York City Dog's Ultimate Survival Guide, co-authored by Munk in 2001;[35] and The Complete Healthy Dog Handbook, written by veterinarian Betsy Brevitz in 2009. But while Urbanhound.com was a critical success, Munk conceded to the New York Times[36] that it never made much money. In November 2009, FetchDog, an e-commerce and catalog company based in Maine, acquired UrbanHound.com from Munk for an undisclosed sum.[37]

## Selected bibliography[edit]

### Articles[edit]

* Africa Rising: Harvard? Yale? Princeton? “A nonprofit program is recruiting Kenya's top high-school students and connecting them with America's most competitive universities” Air Mail, 2020-10-17
* “A First-Hand Look at Atrocity, by a ‘Privileged” Eye-Witness” The Toronto Star, 2018-12-02
* "How Warren Buffett's Son Would Feed the World" The Atlantic, 2016-05-01
* "The Met's Grand Gamble" "Vanity Fair, 2010-05-01
* "Rich Harvard, Poor Harvard" Vanity Fair, 2009-08-01
* "Jeffrey Sachs's $200 Billion Dream", Vanity Fair, 2007-07-01
* "Greenwich's Outrageous Fortunes", Vanity Fair, 2006-07-01
* "Steve Case's New Act", The New York Times, 2005-07-12
* "Steve Wynn's Biggest Gamble", Vanity Fair, 2005-06-01
* "Gunslingers No More", The New York Times, 2005-05-22
* "The Taking of Time Warner" Vanity Fair, 2004-01-01

### Books[edit]

* How It Happened: Documenting the Tragedy of Hungarian Jewry. (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2018. ISBN 978-0-77-355512-9)
* The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty. (Doubleday, 2013. ISBN 978-0-385-52581-7)
* Fools Rush In: Jerry Levin, Steve Case, and the Unmaking of AOL Time Warner. (HarperCollins, 2004. ISBN 0-06-054034-6)
* The Art of Clairtone: The Making of Design Icon, 1958-1971. (McClelland & Stewart, 2008. ISBN 978-0-7710-6507-1)
* The Great Hangover: 21 Tales of the New Recession from the Pages of Vanity Fair Magazine. (Harper Perennial, 2010. ISBN 978-0-06-196442-8)

## References[edit]

1. ^ "Vanity Fair contributor's bio for Nina Munk". Vanity Fair. Retrieved Mar 16, 2023.
2. ^ Amazon page for The Idealist
3. ^ "Fools Rush". HarperCollins. Retrieved Mar 16, 2023.
4. ^ Munkácsi, Erno; Laczó, Ferenc (2018-10-29). Munk, Nina (ed.). How It Happened: Documenting the Tragedy of Hungarian Jewry. Translated by Lengyel, Péter Balikó (3rd ed.). Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press. ISBN 978-0-7735-5512-9.
5. ^ [Publishers Marketplace Deal Report, 2021-10-26]
6. ^ Xu, Sam (Jul 16, 2020). "Generous gift from the family of Linda Munk to support English MA students". Retrieved Mar 16, 2023.
7. ^ "Smith Alumnae Quarterly Fall 2014 Page 30". saqonline.smith.edu. Retrieved Mar 16, 2023.
8. ^ "VF Writer Nina Munk and Artist Peter Soriano Buy P.R. Queen’s Six-Story Townhouse," New York Observer, 03-20-12
9. ^ "Past Fellows 2020-2021".
10. ^ "Pinned Tweet, @ninamunk, 2021-10-28".
11. ^ "What was the right thing to do in 1944?" Neokohn, 2022-05-30
12. ^ "VANITY FAIR'S SCHOOLS FOR SCANDAL | Kirkus Reviews". Retrieved Mar 16, 2023 - via www.kirkusreviews.com.
13. ^ "Eliza Villarino, "Nina Munk: Charity Works But it's Not Development," Devex, 2013-10-10". 10 October 2013. Retrieved Mar 16, 2023.
14. ^ "The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty," Publishers Weekly, 2013-04-29
15. ^ Nocera, Joe (Sep 3, 2013). "Opinion | Fighting Poverty, and Critics". The New York Times. Retrieved Mar 16, 2023 - via NYTimes.com.
16. ^ "Spectator Writers Pick Their Books of the Year," The Spectator, 2013-11-16
17. ^ Allen, Frederick E. "The Best Books Of 2013". Forbes. Retrieved Mar 16, 2023.
18. ^ "Buffett, Slim, Greenspan, El-Erian, Lew Pick Best Books of 2013". Bloomberg. Dec 14, 2013. Retrieved Mar 16, 2023 - via www.bloomberg.com.
19. ^ "Amazon.ca: fd_redirect". www.amazon.ca. Retrieved Mar 16, 2023.[dead link]
20. ^ Gates, Bill. "A cautionary tale from Africa". gatesnotes.com. Retrieved Mar 16, 2023.
21. ^ ""Presenting the Albies of 2013," Foreign Policy, 2013-12-31". Retrieved Mar 16, 2023.
22. ^ Traub, James (6 September 2013). "Book Review: The Idealist". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved Mar 16, 2023.
23. ^ William Easterly, "The Arrogance of Good Intentions," Barron's, 2013-10-05
24. ^ Howard W. French, "The Not-So-Great Professor: Jeffrey Sachs' Incredible Failure to Eradicate Poverty in Africa," Pacific Standard, 2013-09-17
25. ^ "Ericka Fry, "Jeffrey Sachs's failed experiment in Africa," Fortune.com, 2013-10-11". Retrieved Mar 16, 2023.
26. ^ "Financial Post". financialpost. Retrieved Mar 16, 2023.
27. ^ "Has Jeffrey Sachs Actually Helped Ease Poverty? | The Brian Lehrer Show". WNYC. Retrieved Mar 16, 2023.
28. ^ Liptak, Adam (Jan 18, 2004). "You've Got Travail". The New York Times. Retrieved Mar 16, 2023 - via NYTimes.com.
29. ^ "America's new reality can feel frightening. Here's why I'm still optimistic". MSNBC.com. 2021-07-19. Retrieved 2023-07-20.
30. ^ "the New York Times, 2006-07-24". The New York Times. Retrieved Mar 16, 2023.
31. ^ Gordon Pitts, "Peter Munk: The Lesson from the Clairtone Story," The Globe and Mail, 2008-03-30
32. ^ "The Art of Clairtone: The Making of a Design Icon, 1958-1971 set to Open at Design Exchange". artdaily.cc. Retrieved Mar 16, 2023.
33. ^ https://www.sphinxproductions.com/films/clairtone
34. ^ David Carr, "A Sideline That Competes with a Byline," the New York Times, 2006-07-26
35. ^ Munk, Nina; Zonis, Nadia (2001). Urbanhound: The New York City Dog's Ultimate Survival Guide. City & Company. ISBN 1929439180.
36. ^ Mainland, Alexis (Sep 24, 2009). "Web Site for Dog Lovers Has Had Its Day, Creator Decides". City Room. Retrieved Mar 16, 2023.
37. ^ "Urbanhound.com is Back; The Beloved On-Line Resource for City dog Owners Announces it Has Joined forces With FetchDog". PRWeb. Retrieved Mar 16, 2023.

## External links[edit]

* Personal website
* "Nina Munk on Poverty, Development, and the Idealist", a one-hour interview on the EconTalk podcast hosted by Russ Roberts
* "A Conversation with Author Nina Munk" on Charlie Rose
* "Nina Munk speaks at Central European University, Budapest"

Authority control databases

International|

* ISNI
* VIAF
* WorldCat

National|

* Israel
* United States