Choosing Civility

Pier Massimo Forni was born in Bologna, Italy on October 16, 1951. He received an undergraduate degree from the University of Pavia in 1974. He served for two years in the Italian army's Alpini corps. He received a Ph.D. in Italian literature from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1981 and joined the Johns Hopkins University faculty in 1985. In 1997, he became the principal founder of the Johns Hopkins Civility Project.

He wrote several books including Choosing Civility: The Twenty-Five Rules of Considerate Conduct, The Civility Solution: What to Do When People Are Rude, and The Thinking Life: How to Thrive in the Age of Distraction. He died from complications of Parkinson's disease on December 1, 2018 at the age of 67.

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