Douglas Brinkley

The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast

Douglas Brinkley received the 2007 RFK Book Award for The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Based on hundreds of interviews with hurricane survivors, first responders, and elected officials, The Great Deluge recounts the events of Katrina in gripping detail, offering portraits of both everyday heroism and official incompetence.

Douglas Brinkley is a professor of history at Rice University, CBS News Historian, and a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. Seven of his books have been selected as New York Times Notable Books of the Year. Cronkite won the Sperber Prize for Best Book in Journalism and was included on the Washington Post's lists of Notable Books of the Year in 2012. He lives in Texas with his wife and three children. Brinkley has been awarded honorary doctorates from Trinity College (Connecticut), University of Maine, Hofstra University, and Allegheny College, among many others.