Simon Reid-Henry is an author, academic and policy analyst specialising in international and political affairs. His current work examines the fault lines of democracy at home and abroad and the political dynamics of international public finance. Simon is a recipient of the Leverhulme Prize and a Fellow of the RSA. He received his PhD in economic geography from the University of Cambridge before moving to Queen Mary University of London, where he was Professor of Historical and Political Geography and Director of the Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences. He is currently Research Professor at PRIO in Oslo, leading an international team examining the politics of duties in modern political society. He has held a number of visiting positions, including in History at Columbia University in New York and at the Norwegian Institute of Foreign Affairs. In 2023 he is a Visiting Professor in International History and Politics at the Graduate Institute Geneva.

Simon is one of the original thinkers behind a new paradigm for international public finance that can better secure global public goods and protect the global commons. In this capacity he served as Academic Lead and member of the Secretariat for the international Expert Working Group on Global Public Investment and Co-Chair of the Global Public Investment Network. He is also the founder and director of Public Interest, a new platform for research and policy innovation staffed by a network of experts, writers and strategic thinkers dedicated to enhancing the common good. Public Interest works with governments and multilaterals to find new ways of enhancing public value. His writing can be found in The Guardian, New Statesman, The Economist, The Times, The Independent on Sunday, and the London Review of Books.

His previous books were each published to critical acclaim. FIDEL AND CHE: A REVOLUTIONARY FRIENDSHIP (Sceptre, 2009) was described by The Economist’s Intelligent Life magazine as “a lucid, pulsating study of not one but two huge figures” and was translated into seven languages. For the Journal of the American Medical Association, THE CUBAN CURE (Chicago University Press, 2010) - which analyses the dramatic history of medical research on the island - “reads like a political thriller for intellectuals”. Shifting focus from the global South to the global North, his more recent writing goes to the heart of the twin crises of inequality and democracy. THE POLITICAL ORIGINS OF INEQUALITY was published by University of Chicago Press in December 2015: “an important book about big issues … it should change the terms of debate,” said Danny Dorling at Oxford University. Simon’s latest book, EMPIRE OF DEMOCRACY (Simon & Schuster, US; John Murrays, UK) - “a colossal history of the last half-century” (Sunday Times) - was published in June 2019 and was a Foreign Affairs Book of the Year 2019 .

Simon lives in Oslo with his wife and two children. He hails from a family of well-known artists. In a fair and just world he would be a professional tennis player; as it is, he makes do as qualified tennis coach focused on diversifying the sport.

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