Background
Lind was born in Austin, Texas, a fifth-generation native of the state.
Lind was born in Austin, Texas, a fifth-generation native of the state.
He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with honors in English and History (Plan II).
Lind is an Arizona State University Future of War Fellow at New America in Washington, District of Columbia, which he co-founded, a contributing editor of Politico and The National Interest and a columnist for Salon. Lind was a guest lecturer at Harvard Law School and has taught at Johns Hopkins and Virginia Technology He has also been an editor or staff writer at The New Yorker, Harper"s Magazine, and The New Republic.
In 1985 he received a Master of Arts degree in International Relations from Yale University and, in 1988, a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Texas Law School.
Lind moved to Washington, where after working as Assistant to the Director of the United States. State Department’s Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs in 1990-1991 he became Executive Editor of The National Interest from 1991-1994. From 1994-1998 he lived in Manhattan and worked for Harper’s Magazine, The New Republic and The New Yorker.
In 1998 he became Washington Editor of Harper’s Magazine and moved to Washington, where in the same year he, Sherle Schwenninger and Walter Russell Mead co-founded the New America Foundation with Ted Halstead, with whom Lind co-authored The Radical Center: The Future of American Politics.