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Peter Dreier

Biography

Peter Dreier

Peter Dreier is E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics and founding chair of the Urban and Environmental Policy Department at Occidental College. A former newspaper reporter, community organizer, and senior policy advisor to Boston Mayor Ray Flynn, he has authored, coauthored or edited eight books, including THE 100 GREATEST AMERICANS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: A Social Justice Hall of Fame and PLACE MATTERS: Metro Politics for the Twenty-First Century. A member of SABR and the Baseball Reliquary, Dreier has published hundreds of articles, op-ed columns and essays on baseball, politics and social movements for the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, the Nation, American Prospect, Dissent, New Republic, Huffington Post, Salon, Talking Points Memo, the Progressive and elsewhere. He frequently appears in the national media and has been interviewed by Bill Moyers, Travis Smiley, Rachel Maddow and Bill O’Reilly, among others. He lives in Pasadena, CA.

Peter Dreier

Books by Peter Dreier

Major League Rebels: Baseball Battles Over Workers' Rights and American Empire
by Robert Elias and Peter Dreier - History, Nonfiction, Sports

In MAJOR LEAGUE REBELS, Robert Elias and Peter Dreier reveal a little-known yet important history of rebellion among professional ballplayers. These reformers took inspiration from the country’s dissenters and progressive movements, speaking and acting against abuses within their profession and their country. Elias and Dreier profile the courageous players who demanded better working conditions, battled against corporate power, and challenged America’s unjust wars, imperialism and foreign policies, resisting the brash patriotism that many link with the “national pastime.”

Baseball Rebels: The Players, People, and Social Movements That Shook Up the Game and Changed America
by Robert Elias and Peter Dreier - History, Nonfiction, Sports

Since baseball emerged in the mid-1800s to become America’s pastime, the nation’s battles over race, gender and sexuality have been reflected on the playing field, in the executive suites, in the press box and in the community. Some of baseball’s rebels are widely recognized, but most of them are either little known or known primarily for their baseball achievements --- not their political views and activism. BASEBALL REBELS tells stories of baseball’s reformers and radicals who were influenced by, and in turn influenced, America’s broader political and social protest movements, making the game --- and society --- better along the way.