Skip to content
Curated category

21st-century American non-fiction writers

  • Donald TrumpDonald Trump was born on the 14th of June 1946 at Jamaica Hospital in Queens, New York, the fourth child of a family that was already wealthy.
  • George H. W. BushGeorge Herbert Walker Bush carried a question with him for most of his adult life. Shot down over the Pacific in 1944, watching both crewmates die while he…
  • Barack ObamaBarack Obama was born on the 4th of August 1961 at Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children in Honolulu, Hawaii, making him the only person to become…
  • Jon ParelesJon Pareles was born in 1953 within the quiet borders of Connecticut. His early life unfolded through the keys of a piano and the mouthpiece of a jazz flute.
  • Stephen ColbertStephen Colbert walked to the podium at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, stood a few yards from President George W.
  • Gwyneth PaltrowGwyneth Kate Paltrow was born on the 27th of September 1972 into a family already at home in Hollywood: her mother, Blythe Danner, was a stage and screen…
  • Vernor VingeVernor Steffen Vinge published his first short story, "Apartness", in the June 1965 issue of the British magazine New Worlds. He had just received his B.S.
  • Roger EbertRoger Ebert typed his last blog post two days before he died on the 4th of April 2013, signing off with words that could have come from any of his 46 years…
  • Al GoreAl Gore won more votes than his opponent on Election Day 2000, yet still lost the presidency. That outcome, decided by a Supreme Court ruling of 5-4 in Bush…
  • Ralph BakshiRalph Bakshi was born on the 29th of October 1938 in Haifa, Mandatory Palestine, into a Krymchak Jewish family, and by the time he was a teenager in Brooklyn…
  • Joseph StiglitzJoseph Stiglitz grew up in Gary, Indiana, a steel town whose economic fortunes would later give shape to many of the questions he spent a career trying to…
  • Tom ShoneTom Shone spent five years as the Sunday Times film critic, from 1994 to 1999, sitting in darkened cinemas and wrestling with questions that most critics of…
  • Eric SchmidtEric Schmidt was born on the 27th of April, 1955, in Falls Church, Virginia, into a family shaped by academia and government service.
  • JD VanceJames David Vance was born James Donald Bowman on the 2nd of August 1984, in Middletown, Ohio. He grew up in a home marked by poverty and abuse while his…
  • Milton FriedmanMilton Friedman died on the 16th of November 2006, and his last column ran in The Wall Street Journal the very next day.
  • Arnold SchwarzeneggerArnold Alois Schwarzenegger arrived in the United States in October 1968 at age 21, speaking little English and carrying little money.
  • Ken JenningsKen Jennings was already five months into the longest winning streak in American game show history when he finally sat down to answer a question about H&R…
  • Paul SamuelsonPaul Samuelson stood at a lectern in a University of Chicago classroom on the 2nd of January, 1932, and later said that was the exact moment he was born as…
  • Daniel YerginDaniel Howard Yergin was born on the 6th of February 1947 in Los Angeles, California, and by the time he finished his fourth book, he had written what would…
  • George Dyson (science historian)George Dyson was born on the 26th of March 1953 into a family of remarkable minds. His father was the theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson.
  • Daniel KahnemanDaniel Kahneman was born on the 5th of March, 1934, in Tel Aviv, while it was still the British Mandate of Palestine. He would go on to win the Nobel…
  • James M. BuchananJames McGill Buchanan Jr. was born on the 3rd of October 1919 in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, in a farmhouse with no indoor plumbing and no electricity.
  • George SorosGeorge Soros was born György Schwartz on the 12th of August 1930 in Budapest, into a prosperous Jewish family that would spend the next decade and a half…
  • Steve BannonSteve Bannon sat aboard a luxury yacht off the coast of Connecticut on the 20th of August 2020, when federal agents arrived to arrest him.
  • Michael CrichtonMichael Crichton stood 6 feet 9 inches tall, and he spent much of his life feeling out of place because of it. That restlessness never left him.
  • David BrinGlen David Brin was born on the 6th of October 1950 in Glendale, California. His parents were Selma and Herb Brin, who raised him as a Jewish child.
  • Wendell WallachWendell Wallach was born on the 21st of April 1946 in Torrington, Connecticut. His mother Gerda Wilhelmina Lewenz had been born in Berlin during World War I…
  • Gary BeckerGary Stanley Becker was born on the 2nd of December 1930 in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, and by the time he died in Chicago on the 3rd of May 2014, he had done…
  • Kareem Abdul-JabbarOn the road against Utah on the 5th of April 1984, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar caught a pass from Magic Johnson and rose into his skyhook from 15 feet.
  • Phil JacksonPhil Jackson holds eleven NBA championships as a head coach, a record no other coach in league history has matched. Born on the 17th of September, 1945, in…
  • David M. EwaltDavid M. Ewalt was born in 1976 and began his career writing for InformationWeek. He moved from that role to become deputy editor of Forbes magazine.
  • Elinor OstromElinor Ostrom was born in Los Angeles in 1933, and she died on the 12th of June 2012, the same day her last article was published.
  • Roger LowensteinRoger Lowenstein grew up in Larchmont, New York, the son of a Columbia University law professor who spent his career writing critiques of American finance.
  • Charley RosenCharley Rosen grew up in The Bronx with a body built for basketball and a mind built for argument. By the time he died in Kingston, New York, on the 13th of…