Douglas Brinkley

Douglas Brinkley (born December 14, 1960) is an American author, Katherine Tsanoff Brown Chair in Humanities, and professor of history at Rice University.

Brinkley is a history commentator for CNN, Presidential Historian for the New York Historical Society, and a contributing editor to the magazine Vanity Fair.

He is a public spokesperson on conservation issues.

Brinkley was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1960, but after his father was transferred to the Toledo, Ohio headquarters of Owens-Illinois in 1969, did his remaining elementary and secondary schooling in Perrysburg, Ohio.

His mother was a high school English teacher.

In fourth grade Doug memorized the Presidents, their vice presidents, as well as the opposing presidential and vice presidential candidates.

Brinkley was educated at Perrysburg High School, followed by Ohio State University, from which he earned a B.A. (1982), and Georgetown University, earning an M.A. (1983) and Ph.D. (1989) in U.S. diplomatic history.

He has been on the faculty of Hofstra University, the University of New Orleans, Tulane University, and Rice University.

He received an honorary doctorate for his contributions to American letters from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.

During his time in Georgetown, Brinkley worked as the night manager at Second Story Books in DC.

During the early 1990s, Brinkley taught American Arts and Politics for Hofstra aboard the Majic Bus, a roving transcontinental classroom, from which emerged the book The Majic Bus: An American Odyssey (1993).

He then co-edited a monograph series with Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and William vanden Heuvel in the 1990s.

Brinkley's first book was Jean Monnet: The Path to European Unity (1992).

His second was Dean Acheson: The Cold War Years (1992).

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."

Brinkley worked closely with his mentor, historian Stephen E. Ambrose, then director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies 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.

Brinkley also edited a volume on Dean Acheson and the Making of US Foreign Policy with Paul H. Nitze (1993).

In 1999, he published The Unfinished Presidency about Jimmy Carter's active and influential post-presidency.

Brinkley is the literary executor for his late friend, the journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson.

He is also the editor of a three-volume collection of Thompson's letters.

Brinkley also wrote the Atlantic Monthly cover story of December 2003 on Kerry.

Brinkley's book The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast is a record of the effects of Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast.

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

In 2004, Brinkley released Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War, about U.S. Senator John Kerry's prior 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.

He joined the faculty of Rice University as a professor of history in 2007.

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 Acts.

Critic Nancy Franklin in The New Yorker noted that Brinkley made up a "large part" of the film's "conscience."

"I think it is like December 7th Pearl Harbor it is like the 9/11 tragedy", said Brinkley.

On November 18, 2011, during his testimony before a Congressional hearing on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Brinkley had a heated exchange with Rep. Don Young.

Young, who had not been present during Brinkley's testimony, nonetheless characterized it as "garbage" and addressed Brinkley as "Dr. Rice."

In response, Brinkley stated, "It's Dr. Brinkley. Rice is a university. I know you went to Yuba College and couldn't graduate."

Brinkley's biography of Walter Cronkite, Cronkite was published in 2012.

It was also selected as a Washington Post Book of the Year.

Brinkley and Johnny Depp were nominated for a Grammy for their co-authoring of the liner notes to the documentary: Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.

He also co-edited with Johnny Depp the long lost novel of Woody Guthrie titled House of Earth.

In January 2022, Brinkley compared the 2021 United States Capitol attack to the Holocaust, the September 11 attacks, and the Attack on Pearl Harbor.