David Brooks (commentator)

David Brooks (born August 11, 1961) is a Canadian-born American book author and political and cultural commentator. Though he describes himself as an ideological moderate, others have characterised him as centrist, moderate conservative, or conservative, based on his record as contributor to the PBS NewsHour, and as opinion columnist for The New York Times. In addition to his shorter form writing, Brooks has authored six non-fiction books since 2000, two appearing from Simon and Schuster, and four from Random House, the latter including The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement (2011), and The Road to Character (2015).

Beginning as a police reporter in Chicago and as an intern at William F. Buckley's National Review, Brooks rose to his positions at The New York Times, NPR, and PBS after a long series of other journalistic positions (film critic for The Washington Times, reporter and op-ed editor at The Wall Street Journal, senior editor at The Weekly Standard, and contributing editor at Newsweek and The Atlantic Monthly.