Brookhiser, Richard 1955–

views updated

Brookhiser, Richard 1955–

PERSONAL:

Born February 23, 1955, in Rochester, NY; son of Robert and Elizabeth Brookhiser; married Jeanne Safer (a psychoanalyst), September 12, 1980. Education: Yale University, B.A., 1977. Politics: Republican. Religion: Methodist.

ADDRESSES:

Office—National Review, 215 Lexington Ave., New York, NY 10016.

CAREER:

National Review, New York, NY, senior editor, 1979-85, managing editor, 1986-87, senior editor, 1988—. Speechwriter for Vice President George Bush, beginning 1982; host of the television special Rediscovering George Washington, aired by Public Broadcasting Service, 2002; New York Historical Society, historian curator of "Alexander Hamilton: The Man Who Made Modern America," 2004-05.

AWARDS, HONORS:

D.Litt., Washington College, 2005.

WRITINGS:

The Outside Story: How Democrats and Republicans Re-elected Reagan, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1986.

(Editor) William F. Buckley, Jr., Right Reason, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1986.

The Way of the WASP: How It Made America and How It Can Save It, So to Speak, Free Press (New York, NY), 1991.

Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington, Free Press (New York, NY), 1996.

(Editor and author of commentary) Rules of Civility: The 110 Precepts that Guided Our First President in War and Peace, Free Press (New York, NY), 1997.

Alexander Hamilton, American, Free Press (New York, NY), 1999.

America's First Dynasty: The Adamses, Free Press (New York, NY), 2002.

Rediscovering George Washington (television special), Public Broadcasting Service, 2002.

Gentleman Revolutionary: Gouverneur Morris, the Rake Who Wrote the Constitution, Free Press (New York, NY), 2003.

What Would the Founders Do? Our Questions, Their Answers, Basic Books (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to books, including Beyond the Boom, edited by Terry Teachout, Poseidon (Las Cruces, NM), 1990, and Patriot Sage: George Washington and the American Political Tradition, edited by Gary L. Gregg and Matthew Spalding, ISI Books (Wilmington, DE), 1999. Columnist for Observer, 1987-2007. Contributor of articles and reviews to periodicals, including Atlantic, New York Times, New Yorker, American Heritage, and Time.

SIDELIGHTS:

National Review senior editor and self-described "political addict" Richard Brookhiser chronicles the 1984 U.S. presidential election campaign in his first book, The Outside Story: How Democrats and Republicans Re-elected Reagan. Deliberately written from the perspective of a campaign outsider, The Outside Story, Brookhiser writes, is meant "to focus on what the candidates say and do in public; to leave the green room and the wings and go out front, and attend, with respect, to the performance." Victor Gold, who as a staff participant had an insider's view of the race between Democrat Walter Mondale and Republican Ronald Reagan, commented in the National Review that it was "one of the dullest, if most bizarre, presidential campaigns in modern times." Gold went on to note, however, that Brookhiser's account of the primaries, conventions, and campaigning of 1984 is "anything but dull." Walter Goodman, writing in the New York Times, appreciated "Brookhiser's irreverent yet serious treatment of a prodigiously silly but deeply serious event." Other reviewers praised Brookhiser's writing style, with New York Times Book Review contributor Timothy Noah describing the author as "a graceful writer with a sharp eye for both the human side of his story and the interplay of ideologies."

In The Way of the WASP: How It Made America, and How It Can Save It, So to Speak, Brookhiser equates the WASP (white Anglo-Saxon Protestant) character with the American character and advocates a general return to WASP values. The author defines WASPs as "the whole loaf, not just the upper crust…. people who clip supermarket coupons as well as the ones who clip the coupons of trust funds." Those who are not white Anglo-Saxon Protestants can also be referred to as WASPs if they adhere to "the way of the WASP," which, Brookhiser asserts, consists of six related qualities: conscience, civic-mindedness, industry, success, usefulness or utility, and antisensuality. According to the author, America has turned away from these traditional values in favor of self, ambition, gratification, group-mindedness (multiculturalism), diffidence, and creativity. "Without the WASP [the United States] would be another country altogether," Brookhiser writes. "Without the continuing influence of [WASP] values, [the United States] is sure to lose its way." Brookhiser presents his thesis in a manner that New York Times Book Review contributor Maureen Dowd called "part essay, part data bank search, part tongue-in-cheek and part serious."

"In sum," observed Lawrence Auster in the National Review, "The Way of the WASP is a devastating refutation of the ‘all-cultures-are-equal’ pieties." The reviewer added that "Brookhiser gives fresh and affirmative meaning to a word normally used as a sign of disdain for America's oldest group—and for America itself." Though some reviewers did not accept the book's premise, Times Literary Supplement contributor Joseph Epstein commented that "Brookhiser is not wrong in his contention that [WASP] values in combination made America a wealthy, independent, and immensely impressive country." Epstein also noted that "the book, though provocative and suggestive in many ways, is more likely to prove convincing about the abandonment of the [WASP] culture than about the need to restore it." Despite expressing some reservations about The Way of the WASP, New York Times critic Christopher Lehmann-Haupt recognized Brookhiser as "an intelligent and articulate cultural critic."

Brookhiser sought to reestablish the greatness of George Washington in his self-described "moral biography," Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington. In his book, he declares that, although our modern culture is saturated with images and cliches about the first president, few of us really know or appreciate Washington. Revisionist historians, intent on uncovering unsavory facts about their subjects, have recently cast him as a greedy businessman, a mediocre soldier, and an easily-swayed politician. Yet the trouble goes deeper than the contemporary taste for the sensational, believes Brookhiser. In his opinion, modern Americans have come to think that nationhood was an inevitable step in our history, but he is convinced that it might never have come about if not for Washington's firm guidance in the critical years after the American Revolution.

"In attempting to restore one great man to his proper historical place, Brookhiser does not mean to revive the Washington cult of the 19th century," advised Gary Rosen in Commentary. "Rather, in this slender volume, he offers a ‘moral biography’ of the first President: an analysis of the extraordinary but altogether human traits that made him so indispensable to the early republic." Describing Washington as a man of great physical prowess and one with a naturally fiery temper, the author shows how carefully his subject went about controlling and refining his inborn characteristics. "He urges us to emulate our first President—to curb and direct our passions, to treat our fellow citizens with civility and respect, and, above all, to perform the duties of free government no less energetically than we claim its rights," continued Rosen. "While others have busied themselves exposing and deconstructing Washington, and ascribing every conceivable injustice to him … it is truly refreshing to be reminded what the life of our founding father still has to teach us." Brookhiser threw more light on Washington when he edited an etiquette book that Washington studied assiduously and followed faithfully. The result is Rules of Civility: The 110 Precepts that Guided Our First President in War and Peace.

Another founding father is reexamined in Alexander Hamilton: American. Brookhiser admires Hamilton for many of the same reasons he praises Washington: his high moral standards and conduct. Ironically, Hamilton is often remembered for an ill-fated extramarital affair and his death in a duel with Aaron Burr, who sought to ruin Hamilton's reputation. Brookhiser admits that Hamilton was not as successful as Washington at controlling his passions, yet he admires the straightforward way Hamilton faced his weaknesses and sought the high road in his political career. He was the illegitimate son of a Scottish rogue; his father deserted his mother shortly after Hamilton's birth. By the age of eleven, he was an orphan, apprenticed to a merchant on the island of St. Croix. Eventually he found his way to America, received an education at the institution that would become Columbia University, became a friend and aide to General Washington in the Continental Army, and became the first U.S. secretary of the treasury. "In this slim and elegantly written volume," wrote Richard A. Samuelson in Commentary, "Brookhiser sets out to show that, even at a distance of two centuries, the life of the most colorful and controversial member of the founding generation can still ‘guide and caution us.’" Booklist contributor Gilbert Taylor echoes that enthusiasm: "[This book's] felicitous composition and insights about Hamilton's adopted American identity make it eminently readable for buffs and historians alike."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Brookhiser, Richard, The Outside Story: How Democrats and Republicans Re-elected Reagan, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1986.

Brookhiser, Richard, The Way of the WASP: How It Made America and How It Can Save It, So to Speak, Free Press (New York, NY), 1991.

PERIODICALS

American Heritage, May-June, 1996, p. 110, review of Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington.

American Spectator, March, 1996, Florence King, review of Founding Father, p. 62; August, 1999, Terry Eastland, review of Alexander Hamilton, American, p. 68.

Booklist, February 15, 1996, Mary Carroll, review of Founding Father, p. 984; March 15, 1997, Margaret Flanagan, review of Rules of Civility: The 110 Precepts that Guided Our First President in War and Peace, p. 1209; January 1, 1999, Gilbert Taylor, review of Alexander Hamilton, American, p. 822.

Commentary, May, 1996, Gary Rosen, review of Founding Father, p. 69; June, 1999, Richard A. Samuelson, review of Alexander Hamilton, American, p. 67.

Forbes, December 2, 1996, Steve Forbes, review of Founding Father, p. 26.

Journal of American History, June, 1997, Dorothy Twohig, review of Founding Father, p. 213.

Kirkus Reviews, January 15, 1999, review of Alexander Hamilton, American.

Library Journal, February 1, 1999, Thomas Schaeper, review of Alexander Hamilton, American, p. 102.

National Review, December 31, 1985, "The Party at the Plaza," p. 123; May 9, 1986, Victor Gold, review of The Outside Story: How Democrats and Republicans Re-elected Reagan, pp. 48-50; January 28, 1991, Lawrence Auster, review of The Way of the WASP: How It Made America and How It Can Save It, So to Speak, pp. 54-55; March 11, 1996, A.J. Bocevich, review of Founding Father, p. 61; April 21, 1997, Reid Buckley, review of Rules of Civility, p. 78.

New Criterion, May, 1999, Lewis E. Lehrman, review of Alexander Hamilton, American, p. 31.

New Republic, November 24, 1986, Jonathan Rieder, review of The Outside Story, p. 40.

New Yorker, February 5, 1996, Michael Lind, review of Founding Father, p. 68.

New York Times, June 9, 1986, Walter Goodman, review of The Outside Story; January 17, 1991, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, review of The Way of the WASP, p. C21.

New York Times Book Review, June 1, 1986, Timothy Noah, review of The Outside Story, p. 29; January 20, 1991, Maureen Dowd, review of The Way of the WASP, pp. 1, 34; February 18, 1996, Joseph J. Ellis, review of Founding Father, p. 8; April 25, 1999, Michael R. Beschloss, review of Alexander Hamilton, American, p. 10.

Publishers Weekly, November 9, 1990, Genevieve Stuttaford, review of The Way of the WASP, p. 48; January 8, 1996, review of Founding Father, p. 55.

Reason, March, 1996, Steven Hayward, review of Founding Father, p. 50.

Saturday Evening Post, May-June, 1998, Ted Kreiter, review of Rules of Civility, p. 54.

Times Literary Supplement, May 31, 1991, Joseph Epstein, review of The Way of the WASP, p. 3; June 18, 1999, C. Bradley Thompson, review of Alexander Hamilton, American, p. 38.