Douglas Brinkley has been hailed by the Chicago Tribune as "America's new past master," and the late Stephen E. Ambrose called him "the best of the new generation of American historians." He is currently a professor of history at Rice University and is the author of a number of award-winning and best-selling books, including The Great Deluge, Tour of Duty, The Boys of Pointe du Hoc, Parish Priest, and most recently, Cronkite.

Six of Brinkley's books have been selected as New York Times "Notable Books of the Year," including The Unfinished Presidency: Jimmy Carter's Journey Beyond the White House (1998), The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast (2006) and The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for American (2009). The Great Deluge was the recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy prize and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book award. The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America became an instant New York Times best seller and was the recipient of the 2009 National Outdoor Book Award.

Brinkley is the literary executor for his late friend, the journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, and is the editor of a three-volume collection of Thompson's letters. He is also the authorized biographer for Beat generation author Jack Kerouac, having edited Kerouac's diaries as Windblown World. He has written profiles of popular writers, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer, and Ken Kesey for Rolling Stone magazine. In 2009, Brinkley interviewed Bob Dylan in Paris and Amsterdam for a Rolling Stone cover story. Brinkley, along with his friend Johnny Depp, was nominated for a Grammy for his co-authoring of the liner notes to the documentary: Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.

A frequent contributor toThe New York Times, The New Yorker and The Atlantic Monthly, Brinkley is also contributing editor for Vanity Fair, The Los Angeles Times Book Review and American Heritage, as well as a member of the Theodore Roosevelt Association, the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Century Club.

Brinkley completed his bachelor's degree at Ohio State University and received his doctorate in U.S. Diplomatic History from Georgetown University in 1989. Before coming to Rice, Brinkley served as professor of history and director of the Roosevelt Center at Tulane University in New Orleans. From 1994 until 2005, he was Stephen E. Ambrose Professor of History and Director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University of New Orleans. During his tenure there he wrote two books with the late Professor Ambrose: Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938 and The Mississippi and the Making of a Nation: From the Louisiana Purchase to Today.