Richard Brookhiser

Richard Brookhiser (; born February 23, 1955) is an American journalist, biographer, and historian. He is a senior editor at National Review. He is most widely known for a series of biographies of the Founding Fathers of the United States, including Alexander Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris, and George Washington.

Life and career Brookhiser was born in Irondequoit, a suburb north of Rochester, New York. His father worked for Eastman Kodak in Rochester and was a lieutenant in the Army Air Corps during World War II. He has written books that deal with the nation's founding and the principles of its founders, including What Would the Founders Do?, a book describing how the Founding Fathers would approach topical issues that generate controversy in modern-day America.

Brookhiser began writing for National Review in 1970. His first article, done on antiwar protests when he was 15 in high school, was a cover story in National Review in 1970. He earned an A.B. degree (1977) at Yale. led to the "Alexander Hamilton: The Man Who Made Modern America" exhibition at The New-York Historical Society (2004–2005), for which he was the historian curator. He received an honorary doctorate degree in 2005 from Washington College.

In 2008, President George W. Bush awarded Brookhiser the National Humanities Medal in a White House ceremony.

Cancer and marijuana use Brookhiser became ill with testicular cancer in 1992 and smoked marijuana to alleviate nausea from chemotherapy. (Before that, he had smoked marijuana in college about ten times, he said.)

"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." They also have a home in Ulster County in the Catskills.

Books

Glorious Lessons: John Trumbull, Painter of the American Revolution, 276 pages (Yale University Press: 2024) Give Me Liberty: A History of America's Exceptional Idea, 304 pages (Basic Books: 2019) John Marshall: The Man Who Made the Supreme Court, 324 pages (Basic Books: 2018) Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln, 376 pages (Basic Books: 2014) James Madison, 304 pages (Basic Books: 2011) Right Time, Right Place: Coming of Age with William F. Buckley Jr. and the Conservative Movement, 272 pages (Basic Books: 2009) George Washington on Leadership, 269 pages (Basic Books: 2008) What Would the Founders Do?: Our Questions, Their Answers, 261 pages (Basic Books: 2006) Contents links. Gentleman Revolutionary: Gouverneur Morris, the Rake Who Wrote the Constitution, 272 pages (Free Press: 2003) Rules of Civility: The 110 Precepts That Guided Our First President in War and Peace, 90 pages (University of Virginia Press: 2003) America's First Dynasty : The Adamses, 1735–1918, 256 pages (Free Press: 2002) George Washington: A National Treasure, 104 pages (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution: 2002) Fighting the Good Fight: A History of the New York Conservative Party, 434 pages (St. Augustine's Press: 2002) (Contributor) Patriot Sage: George Washington and the American Political Tradition, editors Gary L. Gregg, Matthew Spalding, William J. Bennett, 355 pages (ISI Books: 1999) Alexander Hamilton, American, 240 pages (Free Press: 1999) Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington, 240 pages (Free Press: 1996) Way of the Wasp: How It Made America, and How It Can Save It, So to Speak, 171 pages (Free Press: 1990) The Outside Story (Doubleday reissue edition: 1986)