Author of the national bestsellers, Fast Food Nation and Reefer Madness, Eric Schlosser investigates hidden realms of American business and culture and their far-reaching effects on our lives. He challenges people to think about critical and often overlooked issues, including food safety, workers’ rights, the war on drugs, our prison system, marketing to children and the obesity epidemic.

His work has taken him from the slaughterhouses in the High Plains and the marijuana farms of Indiana to the prisons of New York and the strawberry fields of California. "A lot of what I write about is what people on some level don't want to hear about," he says. "But it's also what people need to know."

In Fast Food Nation (over two years on The New York Times bestsellers list), Schlosser uncovers the inner workings of the American food industry, from the appalling working conditions in meat-packing plants to the “flavor industry” along the New Jersey Turnpike that gives fast food its taste. Schlosser reveals how fast food has been a revolutionary force in American life, transforming our diet as well as our economy, workforce and popular culture. The San Francisco Chronicle called the book “as disturbing as it is irresistible... exhaustively researched, frighteningly convincing.” In the spring of 2006, Schlosser released Chew On This: Everything You Don’t Want to Know About Fast Food, a New York Times children’s bestseller.

In his bestselling expose, Reefer Madness, Schlosser examines three commodities that have defied government laws and fueled America’s black market, which now comprises about 10 percent of the overall economy. Focusing on marijuana (one of the nation’s largest cash crops), pornography (whose largest beneficiaries include Fortune 100 companies) and illegal migrant workers (who toil for paltry pay), he charts the growth of the underground economy and finds its roots in the ingenuity, greed, idealism and hypocrisy that define American society. “In the finest tradition of all-American muckraking,” wrote The Washington Post, “[Reefer Madness] is riveting...with conscientiously well-documented facts.”

In his books Schlosser offers an alternative view of what has happened in the United States during the past 30 years. His intensive archival research and first-hand reporting have established him as one of America’s leading cultural critics. Schlosser has been a correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly since 1996. His work has appeared in Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, The Nation and The New Yorker. Both of his books have been on The New York Times business bestsellers list. Fast Food Nation has been translated into more than 20 languages and reached #1 on The Chronicle of Higher Education’s list of “What They’re Reading on College Campuses.” A movie version of Fast Food Nation, written by Richard Linklater and Schlosser, debuted at Cannes and was released in the fall of 2006. It features Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke and Greg Kinnear.

Schlosser’s next book will explore the question, “How does the land of the free come to have the largest prison population in the history of the world?”

The John J. Rhodes Chair in Public Policy and American Institutions in Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University, celebrates the career of public service of one of Arizona's and the nation's most distinguished leaders. The Rhodes Chair is dedicated to deepening theoretical and practical understanding of the many voices and forces the influence public policy. The Chair honors the values of personal integrity, fiscal responsibility, respect for persons, and international farsightedness exemplified in the Honorable John J. Rhodes' career.

The John J. Rhodes Chair was named an Arizona Heritage Chair by former ASU President, Lattie Coor. ASU Heritage Chairs honor the achievements and values of Arizona leaders whose life work helped shape the character of both Arizona and our metropolitan area. An archive of John J. Rhodes’s congressional papers is available in the Special Collections at Hayden Library on the ASU Tempe Campus.

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