Packer's parents, Nancy Packer and Herbert Packer, were both academics at Stanford University; his maternal grandfather was George Huddleston, a congressman from Alabama. His sister, Ann Packer, is also a writer. Packer graduated from Yale College, where he lived in Calhoun College, in 1982, and served in the Peace Corps in Togo.His essays and articles have appeared in Boston Review, The Nation, World Affairs, Harper's, The New York Times, and The New Yorker, among other publications. Packer is a columnist for Mother Jones and has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since May 2003.

Packer is a Holtzbrinck Fellow Class of Fall 2009 at the American Academy in Berlin. The title of his project there is Enlightenment and War.

Packer's most recent book, The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq, analyzes the events that led to the 2003 invasion of Iraq and reports on subsequent developments in that country, largely based on interviews with ordinary Iraqis. Packer supported the Iraq War in the run-up to the invasion. In his book, The Assassins' Gate, Packer characterizes the anti-war movement as fringe, knee-jerk in its pacifism and lacking in "understanding" of the region. This was consistent with Packer's pre-war condemnation of the anti-war movement being part and parcel with a "doctrinaire left" that opposes any and all American foreign policy. Or as Packer put it in another piece, the antiwar movement was "controlled by the furthest reaches of the American left" - a conclusion supported by reference to slogans and signs at some anti-war rallies.

He was a finalist for the 2004 Michael Kelly Award.

Books

• The Village of Waiting (1988). New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (1st Farrar edition, 2001). Pb. ISBN 0-374-52780-6
• The Half Man (1991). Random House ISBN 0-394-58192-X
• Central Square (1998). Graywolf Press ISBN 1-55597-277-2
• Blood of the Liberals (2000). Farrar, Straus and Giroux ISBN 0-374-25142-8
• The Fight is for Democracy: Winning the War of Ideas in America and the World (2003, as editor). Harper Perennial. Pb. ISBN 0-06-053249-1
• The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq (2005) Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2005 ISBN 0-374-29963-3
• Betrayed: A Play (2008) Faber & Faber

Articles

• [Richard Holbrooke's plan to avoid the mistakes of Vietnam in Afghanistan].

Magazine Articles About the Iraq War

• Over Here: Iraq the Place vs. Iraq the Abstraction, World Affairs
• Comment: "No Blame, No Shame", The New Yorker, May 14, 2007.
• A Reporter at Large: "Betrayed" The Iraqis who trusted America the most, The New Yorker, March 26, 2007.
• "Knowing the Enemy", The New Yorker, December 18, 2006.
• Comment: "Unrealistic", The New Yorker, November 27, 2006.
• "Save Whomever We Can", The New Republic, November 27, 2006.
• Comment: "Alternative Realities", The New Yorker, October 30, 2006.
• Comment: "Keep Out", The New Yorker, October 16, 2006.
• Comment: "Prisoners", The New Yorker, September 18, 2006.
• Comment: "Not Wise", The New Yorker, May 8, 2006.
• Letter from Iraq: "The Lesson of Tal Afar" April 10, 2006.
• Comment: "Saddam on Trial", The New Yorker, October 31, 2005.
• Comment: "Game Plan", The New Yorker, October 24, 2005.
• Comment: "Name Calling", The New Yorker August 8, 2005.
• A Reporter at Large: "The Home Front", The New Yorker, July 4, 2005.
• Letter from Basra: "Testing the Ground", , The New Yorker, February 28, 2005.
• Comment: "Invasion versus Persuasion", The New Yorker, December 20, 2004.
• Comment: "Questions of Greatness", The New Yorker, October 25, 2004.
• A Reporter at Large: "The Next Iraqi War?", The New Yorker October 4, 2004.
• Comment: "The Political War", The New Yorker, September 27, 2004.
• Letter from Athens: "From the Playing Field", The New Yorker, August 30, 2004.
• Comment: Wars and Ideas, The New Yorker, July 5, 2004.
• Letter from Baghdad: "Caught in the Crossfire", The New Yorker, May 17, 2004.
• "War after the War" What Washington doesn't see in Iraq., The New Yorker, November 24, 2003.
• Tuning In: A Butcher in Baghdad, The New Yorker, April 7, 2003.
• "Dreaming of Democracy", New York Times Magazine, March 2, 2003.

Other Topics

• George Packer at FSG
• Blog at the New Yorker
• Biography of Packer at The New Yorker
• Comment: "Mr. Independent", The New Yorker July 2, 2007
• "The Megacity - Decoding the Chaos of Lagos", The New Yorker, November 13, 2006.
• "The Revolution Will Not Be Blogged", Mother Jones, May/June 2004. (Issue on the limitations of the political blogosphere)
• George Packer on Assassins' Gate, Washington Post Book World, October 11, 2005.
• Posts by George Packer at TPMCafe.
• Review of The Assassins' Gate, The Washington Monthly.
• Profile in the Columbia Journalism Review.
• Review of Stephen Koch, “The Breaking Point: Hemingway, dos Passos, and the Murder of Jose Robles”