Rich Benjamin is an investigator, an observer, a cultural translator. He is the author of Talk to Me: Lessons from a Family Forged by History (Pantheon Books, 2025). A family memoir that doubles as a portrait of America, Talk to Me combines archival research, oral history, political analysis, and lyricism.
Benjamin’s first book, Searching for Whitopia: An Improbable Journey to the Heart of White America (2009), was selected for an Editor’s Choice award from the American Library Association. Now in its second printing, this groundbreaking anthropological study is one of the first to have illuminated in advance the rise of Trumpism, white anxiety, and white nationalism in current U.S.A. life.
Benjamin’s writing appears in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and elsewhere, and he’s interviewed often in the international and U.S.A. Media. He's appeared on NPR, PBS, and MSNBC.
Portrait by Stephen Mak
