Pete Hamill (born 1935) is a prominent American journalist, novelist, and short story writer. He is currently on the staff of The New Yorker.

Hamill was born in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn as the oldest of seven children of Irish immigrants from Belfast, Northern Ireland. He attended Catholic schools as a child. He left school at 16 to work in the Brooklyn Navy Yard as a sheet metal worker, and then joined the United States Navy.

In 1960, Hamill begain working as a reporter for the New York Post. In subsequent years, he became one of the city's best known reporters, as columnist for the Post, the New York Daily News, and Newsday As a foreign correspondent, he covered wars in Vietnam, Nicaragua, Lebanon and Northern Ireland. In different periods, Hamill was editor-in-chief of both the New York Post and the New York Daily News. His work landed him on the master list of Nixon political opponents.

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NPR Topics: Authors

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Rick Perlstein's book, Nixonland, combines an evocative trip through the 1960s and early 1970s with an assessment of the impact of Richard Nixon's political career. Perstein argues that many of the deep political divisions in modern American politics were defined by that period, and exploited effectively by Nixon.
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After he won the presidency, Abraham Lincoln brought three of his rivals for the Republican nomination into his cabinet. Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin's book, Team of Rivals, recounts the life and work of our 16th president — and the principal characters of his administration.

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