Jennet Conant Biography
Jennet Conant (Jennet Richards Conant) is an American non-fiction author and journalist. Conant has written five books about World War II, three of which have appeared on the New York Times Best Seller list: Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science that Changes the Course of WWII, The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington, 109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos, and A Covert Affair: Julia Child and Paul Child in the OSS.
Jennet Conant Education
Born in Seoul, South Korea and raised in Asia and America, Conant received a BA degree (cum laude) in Political Theory from Bryn Mawr College in 1982, and double-majored in Philosophy at Haverford College.
In 1983, she completed a master’s degree in Journalism from New York City’s Columbia University. She was awarded a John J. McCloy Fellowship to study politics in Germany.
Jennet Conant Career
She went on to work at Newsweek magazine for seven years, and wrote profiles for Spy magazine, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times. Additionally, Conant was a contributing editor for Esquire, GQ, and Vanity Fair, from which she resigned to write her first book, Tuxedo Park.
Conant’s profile of James Watson, the co-discoverer of the double-helix, was featured in The Best American Science & Nature Writing 2004.
Jennet Conant Age
Conant was born on July 15, 1959 in Seoul, South Korea (she is 64 years old as of 2023).
Jennet Conant Height
She stands at an estimated height of about 5 feet 8 inches tall.
Jennet Conant Family
She is the granddaughter of James Bryant Conant, noted chemist and President of Harvard University. She has not yet provided any information about her parents or siblings.
Jennet Conant Husband
Jennet is married to journalist Steve Kroft and together they have a son. She resides in New York City and in Sag Harbor, New York.
Jennet Conant Net Worth
Conant has an estimated net worth of about $1 million to $5 million.
Jennet Conant Books
- Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science that Changed the Course of World War II(2002), based in part on her family’s role in World War II, explores the hitherto unknown story of lawyer, scientist, and New York financier Alfred Lee Loomis and his role in the development of radar technology during World War II.
- Her second book, 109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos (2005), is an account of the history, science, politics and struggles surrounding the building of the atomic bomb. It includes insights from the author’s grandfather, James B. Conant, who was an administrator for the Manhattan Project. In 2006, it won the Spirit of the West Award for literary achievement in nonfiction.
- The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington (2008) is about the structure, history, development, implications, and influence of British espionage in the United States before, during and immediately after World War II. Her history of the organization known as British Security Coordination (BSC) chronicles the exploits of a charm brigade that included such recruits as Roald Dahl, Ian Fleming and David Ogilvy as well as the head of BSC, William Stephenson. It was selected as Amazon Best Book of the Month September 2008.
- A Covert Affair: Julia Child and Paul Child in the OSS (2011) is about the experiences of Julia Child and Paul Child as members of the Office of Strategic Services(OSS) in the Far East during World War II and the later years when they were caught up in the McCarthy Red spy hunt in the 1950s.
- Man of the Hour: James B. Conant, Warrior Scientist (2017) is a biography of Conant’s grandfather James B. Conant, a prominent chemist, president of Harvard University, and ambassador to Germany. A review in the journal Nature (journal) called it a “welcome” take on James Conant’s life, emerging “at a salutary moment,” and said that Jennet Conant “is a fine writer.”