He earned an [[Bachelor of Arts|A.B.]] degree (1977) at [[Yale University|Yale]], where he was active in the [[Yale Political Union]] as a member and sometime Chairman of the Party of the Right.  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]].

• Right Time, Right Place: Coming of Age with William F. Buckley Jr. and the Conservative Movement, 272 pages (Basic Books: 2009) ISBN 978-0-465-01355-5
• George Washington on Leadership, 269 pages (Basic Books: 2008) ISBN 978-0-465-00302-0
• What Would the Founders Do?: Our Questions, Their Answers, 261 pages (Basic Books: 2006) ISBN 0-465-00819-4 Contents links.
• Gentleman Revolutionary: Gouverneur Morris, the Rake Who Wrote the Constitution, 272 pages (Free Press: 2003) ISBN 0-7432-2379-9
• Rules of Civility: The 110 Precepts That Guided Our First President in War and Peace, 90 pages (University of Virginia Press: 2003) ISBN 0-8139-2218-6
• America's First Dynasty : The Adamses, 1735...1918, 256 pages (Free Press: 2002) ISBN 0-684-86881-4
• George Washington: A National Treasure, 104 pages (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution: 2002) ISBN 0-295-98236-5
• Fighting the Good Fight: A History of the New York Conservative Party, 434 pages (St. Augustine's Press: 2002) ISBN 1-58731-251-4
• (Contributor) Patriot Sage: George Washington and the American Political Tradition, editors Gary L. Gregg, Matthew Spalding, William J. Bennett, 355 pages (ISI Books: 1999) ISBN 1-882926-38-2
• Alexander Hamilton, American, 240 pages (Free Press: 1999) ISBN 0-684-83919-9
• Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington, 240 pages (Free Press: 1996) ISBN 0-684-82291-1
• Way of the Wasp: How It Made America, and How It Can Save It, So to Speak, 171 pages (Free Press: 1990) ISBN 0-02-904721-8
• The Outside Story (Doubleday reissue edition: 1986) ISBN 0-385-19679-2