Douglas Brinkley

Douglas Brinkley
Douglas Brinkley in April 2007
Born	December 14, 1960 (1960-12-14) (age 50) Atlanta, Georgia
Occupation	Historian
Nationality	American
Genres	Nonfiction

Douglas Brinkley (born December 14, 1960) is an American author, professor of history at Rice University and a fellow at the James Baker Institute for Public Policy. Brinkley is the history commentator for CBS News and a contributing editor to the magazine Vanity Fair.^[1] He joined the faculty of Rice University as a professor of history on July 1, 2007.^[2]

Early life, education, and career

Brinkley was born in Atlanta, Georgia. His parents were high school teachers. Raised in Perrysburg, Ohio he earned his B.A. from Ohio State University (1982), and his M.A. (1983) and Ph.D. (1989) from Georgetown University in U.S. Diplomatic History. He has taught at Princeton University, the U.S. Naval Academy, and Hofstra University, and he has received an honorary doctorate for his contributions to American letters from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.^{[3][dead link]}

During the early 1990s, Brinkley taught American Arts and Politics out of Hofstra aboard the Majic Bus [sic], a roving transcontinental classroom, from which emerged the book, The Majic Bus: An American Odyssey (1993). In 1993, he left Hofstra to teach at the University of New Orleans, where he taught the class again using two natural-gas fueled buses. According to the Associated Press, "...if you can't tour the United States yourself, the next best thing is to go along with Douglas Brinkley aboard The Majic Bus."^[4]

Brinkley worked closely with his mentor, historian Stephen E. Ambrose, then director of the Eisenhower Center at the University of New Orleans. Ambrose chose Brinkley to become director of the Eisenhower Center, a post he held for five years before moving to Tulane University.

Works and accolades

Brinkley is a prolific and acclaimed historian, writer, and editor.

Ambrose called Brinkley "the best of the new generation of American historians."^[5] Brinkley and Ambrose wrote three books together: The Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938 (1997), Witness to History (1999), and The Mississippi and the Making of a Nation: From the Louisiana Purchase to Today (2002), a National Geographic Society best-seller (published on the bicentennial of Thomas Jefferson's doubling the size of America).^[6] Patrick Reardon from the Chicago Tribune anointed Brinkley America's "new past master." ^[7] In contrast in 2006, historian Wilfred McClay in the New York Sun appraised Brinkley's scholarship as one that has failed to "put forward a single memorable idea, a single original analysis or a single lapidary phrase."

Six of his award-winning books have been selected as New York Times Notable Books of the Year.

Brinkley’s first book was Jean Monnet: The Path to European Unity (1992). Former Undersecretary of State George Ball wrote a forward. But it was the publication of Dean Acheson: The Cold War Years (1992) that brought Brinkley widespread acclaim. A board member of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, Brinkley then co-edited a monograph series with Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and William vanden Heuvel in the 1990s. Brinkley also edited a volume on Dean Acheson and the Making of US Foreign Policy with Paul H. Nitze (1993).

Driven Patriot (1992), a biography of James Forrestal, received the Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt Naval History Prize.

In 1998, Brinkley's comprehensive American Heritage History of the United States was published.

The Unfinished Presidency: Jimmy Carter's Journey Beyond the White House (1999) is widely considered instrumental in the ex-president's winning of the Nobel Peace prize.^[8]

Brinkley's epic Wheels for the World: Henry Ford, His Company, and A Century of Progress (2003) won Business Week book of the year.

Brinkley was selected as the official biographer of Rosa Parks.^{[citation needed]}

Brinkley is the literary executor for his late friend, the journalist Hunter S. Thompson. He is the editor of a three-volume collection of Thompson's letters:

• Volume 1: The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967. Published April 7, 1998.
• Volume 2: Fear And Loathing In America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist. Published December 13, 2000.
• Volume 3: The Mutineer: Rants, Ravings, and Missives from the Mountaintop, 1977-2005. Scheduled for 2012.

Brinkley is also the authorized biographer for Beat generation author Jack Kerouac, having edited Kerouac's diaries as Windblown World (2004).

He has also written profiles of Kurt Vonnegut,^[9] Norman Mailer, and Ken Kesey for Rolling Stone magazine. In 2009, Brinkley interviewed Bob Dylan in Paris and Amsterdam for a Rolling Stone cover story.^[10]

In January 2004, Brinkley released Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War, about U.S. Senator John Kerry's military service and anti-war activism during the Vietnam War. The 2004 documentary movie, "Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry," is loosely based on Brinkley's book.^[11] Brinkley also wrote the Atlantic Monthly cover story of December 2003 on Kerry.^[12]

In January 2006, Brinkley and fellow historian Julie M. Fenster released Parish Priest, a biography of Father Michael J. McGivney, the founder of the Knights of Columbus.

In May 2006, Brinkley released The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, a record of the effects of Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast. The book won the 2007 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award and was a Los Angeles Times book prize finalist. He also served as the primary historian for Spike Lee's documentary about Hurricane Katrina, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Actsand If God is Willing and da Creek Don't Rise. Critic Nancy Franklin in The New Yorker noted that Brinkley made up a "large part" of the film's "conscience."^[13]

Brinkley edited the New York Times best-selling The Reagan Diaries (2007).

Brinkley is the author of The Boys of Pointe du Hoc: Ronald Reagan, D-Day, and the U.S. Army 2nd Ranger Battalion (2005), which rose to #5 on the New York Times Best Seller list.

Brinkley’s The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America was a bestseller in 2009.^[14] It won the 2009 National Outdoor Book Award (History/Biography category).

When Barack Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States Brinkley was asked, along with Tom Brokaw and U.S. Representative John Lewis, to write an essay for the Official Inaugural Book. He was also invited to the White House in the summer of 2009 and 2010 to discuss history with the president in a wide-ranging conversation on everything from foreign policy to conservation.

Personal life

Brinkley lives in Austin, Texas. He and his wife Anne have three children, Johnny, Benton, and Cassady. He is a member of the Century Club and the Council on Foreign Relations. A frequent guest lecturer at colleges and corporate events, he is represented by the Washington Speaker's Bureau.

Selected publications

• Driven Patriot: The Life and Times of James Forrestal (1992). With Townsend Hoopes
• Dean Acheson: The Cold War Years, 1953-71 (1992)
• The Majic Bus: An American Odyssey (1993)
• The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967 (1997) ed.
• Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938 (1997)
• FDR and the Creation of the U.N. (1997) With Townsend Hoopes
• American Heritage History of the United States (1998)
• The Unfinished Presidency: Jimmy Carter's Journey Beyond the White House (1999)
• Witness to America (1999) With Stephen Ambrose
• Fear and Loathing in America: the Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist, 1968-1976 (2000) ed.
• Rosa Parks (2000)
• The Mississippi and the Making of a Nation: From the Louisiana Purchase to Today (2002) With Stephen Ambrose
• Wheels for the World : Henry Ford, His Company, and A Century of Progress, 1903-2003 (2003)
• Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War (2004)
• Voices of Valor : D-Day, June 6, 1944 (2004) With Ronald J. Dretz
• Windblown World: The Journals of Jack Kerouac, 1947-1954 (2004) ed.
• The World War II Memorial: A Grateful Nation Remembers (2004)
• The Boys of Pointe du Hoc: Ronald Reagan, D-Day, and the U.S. Army 2nd Ranger Battalion (2005)
• Parish Priest: Father Michael McGivney and American Catholicism (2006) With Julie M. Fenster
• The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast (2006)
• The Reagan Diaries (2007) ed.
• Road Novels 1957-1960 (2007) ed.
• Gerald R. Ford (2007)
• The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America (2009)
• The Quiet World: Saving Alaska's Wilderness Kingdom, 1879-1960 (2011)

References

1. ^ Brinkley's page @ HarperCollins Publishers
2. ^ "Author, historian Douglas Brinkley to join Rice faculty" - By Franz Brotzen - Rice University - 17 May 2007
3. ^ Biography of Douglas Brinkley at the site for The Great Deluge (2006)
4. ^ Joy Stilley (23 May 1993). "Trip results in more than travel book". Bowling Green Daily News. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Vu8aAAAAIBAJ&sjid=n0cEAAAAIBAJ&dq=douglas%20brinkley%20tour%20bus%20majic%20associated-press&pg=5552%2C4882820. Retrieved 14 Feb 2011. 
5. ^ Brinkley @ New York State Writers Institute - University at Albany, SUNY - Albany.edu
6. ^ Amazon.com listing of books co-written by Brinkley and Ambrose
7. ^ Patrick T. Reardon, "The New Past Master," Chicago Tribune, September 27, 2001
8. ^ Newshour with Jim Lehrer, "Carter Wins Nobel Peace Prize," October 11, 2002
9. ^ Rolling Stone Profile of Kurt Vonnegut
10. ^ Bob Dylan's America by Douglas Brinkley, Rolling Stone, Issue 1078, May 14, 2009
11. ^ "Going Upriver: Synopsis". Archived from the original on 1 Oct 2004. http://web.archive.org/web/20041001095639/www.goingupriver.com/synopsis.html. Retrieved 14 Feb 2011. 
12. ^ Douglas Brinkley (December 2003). "Tour Of Duty". The Atlantic. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/12/tour-of-duty/2833/. 
13. ^ Franklin, Nancy, "Unnatural Disasters," The New Yorker, Vol. 86, Issue 25, pp82-83, August 30, 2010
14. ^ The Wilderness Warrior featured on the following bestseller lists:

    • National Independent bookstore (for non-fiction): #1
    • New York Times: #6
    • Los Angeles Times: #2
    • Washington Post: #4
    • Wall Street Journal: #7

External links

• Douglas Brinkley Author Page on HarperCollins Website

Persondata
Name	Brinkley, Douglas
Alternative names
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Date of birth	December 14, 1960
Place of birth	Atlanta, Georgia
Date of death
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