Richard Brookhiser

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Richard Brookhiser, an American journalist, biographer and historian, is a senior editor at National Review and columnist for The New York Observer. He is most widely known for a series of biographies of America's founders, including Alexander Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris, and George Washington.

He has written other books that deal either with the nation's founding, or the principles of America's founders, such as What Would Our Founders Do?, a book describing how the founding fathers would approach topical issues that generate controversy in modern-day America.

He lives in Manhattan[1] with his wife, and also at a house in Ulster County in the Catskills.

Brookhiser began writing for National Review in 1970. "My first article, on antiwar protests in my high school, was a cover story in National Review in 1970, when I was 15", he writes on his website.[2] He received his bachelor's degree from Yale University, where he was active in the Yale Political Union as a member and sometime Chairman of the Party of the Right. In his freshman year he took a class on Thomas Jefferson taught by Garry Wills. Although admitted to Yale Law School, he went to work full-time for National Review in 1977. For a short time he wrote speeches for Vice President George H.W. Bush. In addition to his writing for National Review he wrote "Talk of the Town" pieces for The New Yorker magazine.

In 1987 he began writing a column for The New York Observer and was still at it as of 2006. Brookhiser's writings have also appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Cosmopolitan, The Atlantic Monthly, Time, Vanity Fair, and other publications.

Brookhiser both wrote and hosted the documentary film Rediscovering George Washington, by Michael Pack, broadcast on PBS on July 4, 2002.[2] He was historian curator of the exhibition "Alexander Hamilton: The Man Who Made Modern America", at The New-York Historical Society (2004-2005). He received an honorary doctorate degree in 2005 from Washington College.[2] As of October 2003, he was reading Andrew Sullivan's blog The Daily Dish and Instapundit, and driving a '77 Camero.[3]

Contents

[edit] His cancer and marijuana use

Brookhiser became ill with testicular cancer in 1992 and smoked marijuana in order to remove the nausea that chemotherapy gave him. (Before that, he smoked marijuana in college about 10 times, he said.)[1]

"Because of the marijuana, my last two courses of chemotherapy were almost nausea-free", he said in 1996. "My cancer is gone now, I was lucky."[1]

On March 6, 1996, he testified before a Congressional committee about using marijuana, urging the committee members to support decriminalization of marijuana for medical purposes.[1]

"My support for medical marijuana is not a contradiction of my principles, but an extension of them", Brookhiser told the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Crime. "I am for law and order. But crime has to be fought intelligently and the law disgraces itself when it harasses the sick. I am for traditional virtues, but if carrying your beliefs to unjust ends is not moral, it is philistine."[1]

[edit] Books

  • What Would the Founders Do?: Our Questions, Their Answers, 261 pages (Basic Books: 2006) ISBN 0-465-00819-4
  • Gentleman Revolutionary: Gouverneur Morris, the Rake Who Wrote the Constitution, 272 pages (Free Press: 2003) ISBN 0-7432-2379-9
  • Rules of Civility: The 110 Precepts That Guided Our First President in War and Peace, 90 pages (University of Virginia Press: 2003) ISBN 0-8139-2218-6
  • America's First Dynasty : The Adamses, 1735--1918, 256 pages (Free Press: 2002) ISBN 0-684-86881-4
  • George Washington: A National Treasure, 104 pages (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution: 2002) ISBN 0-295-98236-5
  • Fighting the Good Fight: A History of the New York Conservative Party, 434 pages (St. Augustine's Press: 2002) ISBN 1-58731-251-4
  • (Contributor) Patriot Sage: George Washington and the American Political Tradition, editors Gary L. Gregg, Matthew Spalding, William J. Bennett, 355 pages (ISI Books: 1999) ISBN 1-882926-38-2
  • Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington, 240 pages (Free Press: 1996) ISBN 0-684-82291-1
  • Way of the Wasp: How It Made America, and How It Can Save It, So to Speak, 171 pages (Free Press: 1990) ISBN 0-02-904721-8

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e [1] From the NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) website, "NORML Library" section, Web page titled "National Review Senior Editor Richard Brookhiser's Congressional Testimony (1996)" an excerpt, ("excerpted from testimony Mr. Brookhiser presented before the House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Crime, on March 6, 1996 in support of the efficacy of medical marijuana."), accessed September 20, 2006 On writing for National Review: "I've written for it for 26 years."
  2. ^ a b c [2]Richard Brookhiser's website, Web page titled "About Rick", accessed September 20, 2006
  3. ^ [3]"Collected Miscellany" website, Web page titled "Richard Brookhiser" (with explanatory note: "Posted by Kevin at October 19, 2003 in Interviews"), an interview with Richard Brookhiser, accessed September 20, 2006

[edit] External links

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