Author Bios
Amy Chua
• Birth—1962
• Where—Champaign, Illinois, USA
• Education—B.A., J.D., Harvard University
• Currently—lives in New Haven, Connecticut
Amy L. Chua is the John M. Duff, Jr. Professor of Law at Yale Law School. She joined the Yale faculty in 2001 after teaching at Duke Law School. Prior to starting her teaching career, she was a corporate law associate at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton. She specializes in the study of international business transactions, law and development, ethnic conflict, and globalization and the law. She is widely known for her parenting memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (2011), and The Triple Package (2014), co-authored with her husband Jed Rubenfeld.
Background
Chua was born in Champaign, Illinois. Her parents were ethnic Chinese from the Philippines who emigrated to the United States. Amy's father, Leon O. Chua, is an Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences professor at the University of California, Berkeley and is known as the father of nonlinear circuit theory, cellular neural networks, and discovered the memristor. She was raised as a Roman Catholic and lived in West Lafayette, Indiana.
When she was eight years old, her family moved to Berkeley, California. Chua went to El Cerrito High School and graduated magna cum laude with an A.B. in Economics from Harvard College in 1984. She obtained her J.D. cum laude in 1987 from Harvard Law School, where she was an Executive Editor of the Harvard Law Review.
Books
Chua has written four books: two studies of international affairs, a memoir and her latest on Ethnic-American culture.
• World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability (2003), explores the ethnic conflict caused in many societies by disproportionate economic and political influence of "market dominant minorities" and the resulting resentment in the less affluent majority. The book—a New York Times Bestseller, was selected by The Economist as one of the Best Books of 2003 and was named in The Guardian as one of the "Top Political Reads of 2003"—examines how globalization and democratization since 1989 have affected the relationship between market dominant minorities and the wider population.
• Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance—and Why They Fall (2007), examines seven major empires and posits that their success depended on their tolerance of minorities.
• Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (2011), is a memoir that ignited a global parenting debate with its story of one mother’s journey in strict parenting techniques.
• The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America (2014) outlines three personal traits that make for individual success. It is co-authored with Jed Rubenfeld, her husband.
Personal
Chua lives in New Haven, Connecticut and is married to Yale Law School professor Jed Rubenfeld. She has two daughters, Sophia and Louisa ("Lulu"). She is the eldest of four sisters: Michelle, Katrin, and Cynthia. Katrin is a physician and a professor at Stanford University School of Medicine. Cynthia, who has Down Syndrome, holds two International Special Olympics gold medals in swimming. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/18/2014.)
Jed Rubenfeld
• Birth—1959
• Where—Washington, D.C., USA
• Education—B.A., J.D., Harvard University
• Currently—lives in New Haven, Connecticut
Jed Rubenfeld, (born 1959 in Washington, D.C.), is the Robert R. Slaughter Professor of Law at Yale Law School. He is an expert on constitutional law, privacy, and the First Amendment. He joined the Yale Law School faculty in 1990 and was appointed to a full professorship in 1994. Rubenfeld has also taught as a visiting professor at both the Stanford Law School and the Duke University School of Law. He is also the author of two novels and a nonfiction work, co-authored with his wife, Amy Chu.
Education
Rubenfeld was a summa cum laude graduate of Princeton University (A.B., 1980) and a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School (J.D., 1986). He also studied theater in the Drama Division of the Juilliard School between 1980-1982. Rubenfeld clerked for Judge Joseph T. Sneed on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 1986-1987.
After his clerkship, he worked as an associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and as an assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York.
Books
2001 - Freedom and Time: A Theory of Constitutional Self-Government
2005 - Revolution by Judiciary: The Structure of American Constitutional Law
2006 - The Interpretation of Murder, a novel
2010 - The Death Instinct, a novel
2014 - The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of
Cultural Groups in America (with Amy Chua)
Personal
Rubenfeld is Jewish. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut and is married to Yale Law School professor Amy Chua, author of several nonfiction works, the most well-known of which is her 2011 memoir on parenting, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (2011). They have two daughters. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/18/2014.)