Brookhiser was born in Irondequoit, a suburb north of Rochester, New York.[1]
His father worked for Eastman Kodak in Rochester and was a lieutenant in the Army Air Corps during World War II.[2] He has written books that deal either with the nation's founding, or the principles of America's founders, including What Would the Founders Do?, a book describing how the Founding Fathers of the United States 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.
[3] He earned an A.B. degree (1977) at Yale.[1] In his freshman year he took a class on Thomas Jefferson taught by Garry Wills. Although admitted to Yale Law School, Brookhiser went to work full-time for National Review in 1977; by the time he was 23, he was a senior editor, the youngest in the magazine's history. He was selected as the successor to the magazine's founder, William F. Buckley, until Buckley ultimately changed his mind. For a short time he wrote speeches for Vice President George H. W. Bush.
Brookhiser both wrote and hosted the documentary films Rediscovering George Washington, by Michael Pack, broadcast on PBS on July 4, 2002,[3] and Rediscovering Alexander Hamilton, also by Pack, broadcast on PBS on April 11, 2011. His book Alexander Hamilton, American[4] 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.[3][5]
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.)[6]
"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."[6]
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.[6]
"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."[6]
Gentleman Revolutionary: Gouverneur Morris, the Rake Who Wrote the Constitution, 272 pages (Free Press: 2003) ISBN0-7432-2379-9
Rules of Civility: The 110 Precepts That Guided Our First President in War and Peace, 90 pages (University of Virginia Press: 2003) ISBN0-8139-2218-6
America's First Dynasty : The Adamses, 1735–1918, 256 pages (Free Press: 2002) ISBN0-684-86881-4
George Washington: A National Treasure, 104 pages (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution: 2002) ISBN0-295-98236-5
Fighting the Good Fight: A History of the New York Conservative Party, 434 pages (St. Augustine's Press: 2002) ISBN1-58731-251-4
(Contributor) Patriot Sage: George Washington and the American Political Tradition, editors Gary L. Gregg, Matthew Spalding, William J. Bennett, 355 pages (ISI Books: 1999) ISBN1-882926-38-2
Alexander Hamilton, American, 240 pages (Free Press: 1999) ISBN0-684-83919-9
