Sunić was born in
Zagreb,
SFR Yugoslavia (present-day Zagreb,
Republic of Croatia) in 1953 to a Croatian Catholic family. He is a naturalized United States citizen. His father, Mirko Sunić (1915–2008) was a lawyer in communist Yugoslavia, who, along with Tomislav's sister, Mirna Sunić, were "prisoners of conscience". The two were charged with creating "hostile propaganda", under Article 133 of the Yugoslav Criminal Code, and the court sentenced them to 4 and 1 years of prison respectively. Mirko Sunić was championed by
Amnesty International and 15 United States congressmen in 1985), Mirko Sunić authored, in 1996,
Moji inkriminirani zapisi ("My incriminating records"). Tomislav Sunić studied French and English Language and Literature at the
University of Zagreb until 1978. From 1980 to 1982 he worked in Algeria as an interpreter for the Yugoslav-Croatian construction company Ingra. He emigrated to the United States, where he received a master's degree at
California State University,
Sacramento in 1985. In June 1987, at the invitation of
Freedom House, Sunić and
Mate Meštrović, along with twelve other émigré academics and dissidents from different Yugoslav constituent republics, were invited to discuss the political crisis in Yugoslavia. Sunić, who participated in the discussion, gave a short speech on Communist repression in Yugoslavia and what he described as the activities of the Yugoslav secret police, the UDBA. Tomislav Sunić received a doctorate in
political science in 1988 from the
University of California, Santa Barbara. During his graduate studies he lobbied for Croatian prisoners in Yugoslavia and wrote for the émigré Croat London-based biweekly
Nova Hrvatska and the Madrid-based Croat literary quarterly
Hrvatska Revija (meaning "Croatian Review") (
Revista Croata). From 1988-93, he taught at
California State University, the
University of California, and
Juniata College (Pennsylvania). From 1993-2001, he served in various diplomatic positions with the Croatian government in Zagreb, London, Copenhagen, and Brussels. He taught at the
Anglo-American College in Prague, and currently resides in Zagreb, where he works as a freelance writer. Sunić's books and views can be described as being in the style of the
GRECE, a school of thought by
Alain de Benoist, who wrote a preface to Sunić's book and whose articles Sunić often translates into English. Sunić has widely written, translated and lectured in English, German, French and Croatian on many authors, novelists and political thinkers who can be called the predecessors of the European New Right (such as
Southern Agrarians,
Emile Cioran,
Ernst Jünger and
Louis-Ferdinand Céline) The "European New Right," or
Nouvelle Droite, is a name for various forms of conservative, right-wing, or dissident cultural movements and political groupings which emerged in opposition to the liberal and leftist academic milieu of the mid- to late-20th century. Critics have argued that de Benoist has developed a novel cultural fascism and have depicted the advocates of Sunić's school of thought as "literary fascists". Evolutionary psychologist
Kevin B. MacDonald wrote an introduction to Sunić's book
Homo Americanus, a book which deals extensively with the Judeo-Christian mindset and its secular modalities in the USA. MacDonald states the work "addresses the modern world of hyper-liberalism, globalist capitalism and the crisis of our inherited
Indo-European civilization". Sunić is critical of Judeo-Christian monotheism, to which he attributes the rise of communism and liberalism. Sunić has been critical of post-World War II legislative changes in Europe, regarding non-white immigration and restrictions on freedom of speech. He has attended and spoken at some conferences organized and attended by historical revisionists. He lectured on
Carl Schmitt, a German legal scholar, who was influential in
Nazi Germany. Sunić's articles have been published in American, French, German and Croatian journals, including the now defunct
Journal of Historical Review. In August 2003, he gave a lecture in German at a conference sponsored by Germany's
National Democratic Party of Germany alongside
Horst Mahler. ==Speaking appearances==