Michael Reid is an author, journalist and speaker, specializing in Latin American, Iberian and international affairs. In 2023 he was appointed as a Visiting Professor in Practice at the School of Public Policy of the London School of Economics.

From 1994 until 2023 he was a staff journalist for The Economist. From 2014 to 2022 he wrote the “Bello” column on Latin America and was a senior editor and Spain correspondent; from 1999 to 2013 he was the magazine’s Americas Editor; he was previously its correspondent in Brazil (1996-99); consumer industries correspondent (1994-95) and correspondent in Mexico and Central America (1990-93). He spent most of the 1980s based in Lima covering the Andean region for The Guardian and the BBC.

His new book “Spain: The Trials and Triumphs of a Modern European Country” was published by Yale University Press in March 2023. His previous books include “Forgotten Continent: A History of the New Latin America” (Second edition, 2017) and “Brazil: The Troubled Rise of a Global Power” (2014), both published by Yale University Press.

He was awarded the Maria Moors Cabot Prize in 2003 for outstanding reporting on Latin America by Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. He received Brazil’s Ordem Nacional do Cruzeiro do Sul in 2000 for his writing on Brazil and the Mercosur region. He has contributed articles to a wide range of publications including El País (Madrid), the New York Times, The Observer, and The Times Literary Supplement. He wrote a weekly column on Latin America for Valor Econômico between 2000 and 2004.

He studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Balliol College, Oxford University. He speaks both Spanish and Portuguese fluently. He is a frequent speaker to business, academic and public-policy audiences. He has testified before the Foreign Relations Committee of the US Senate and the Foreign Affairs Committee of the UK House of Commons.