David Brooks

For those who follow the gyrations of American politics, the week is not complete until David Brooks is heard from. After completing his two columns a week for The New York Times, Brooks takes to the airwaves every Friday, on National Public Radio's All Things Considered, and on PBS television's The News Hour. On the air, as in print, he brings historical perspective, a bracing candor and gentle humor to his analysis of the week's events. Brooks was a senior at the University of Chicago when a piece he'd written, lampooning conservative icon William F. Buckley, Jr., caught the eye of its presumed target and led to an assignment with Buckley's National Review. Brooks later became a regular contributor to The New Yorker, Newsweek and The Atlantic Monthly. As a foreign correspondent, he covered Europe, Russia, South Africa and the Middle East for The Wall Street Journal, and later edited the paper's opinion page. His 2000 bestseller, Bobos in Paradise, was a work of 'comic sociology' anatomizing the class of 'bourgeois bohemians' ('Bobos' for short) whose lives combine capitalist enterprise with counterculture tastes. In his latest book, The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character and Achievement, Brooks applies the lessons of neuroscience and sociology to explore the unconscious drives and choices that ultimately make individuals productive, happy or successful. This podcast was recorded at the Top of the Hay, on the top floor of the Hay-Adams Hotel, overlooking the White House in Washington, D.C., on the first night of the 2012 International Achievement Summit. Brooks discusses the lives of three individuals -- Dorothy Day, George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower -- who achieved greatness by identifying and overcoming their personal weaknesses.