David Brooks was born in Toronto, Canada on August 11, 1961. He received a degree in history from the University of Chicago in 1983. After graduation, he worked as a police reporter for the City News Bureau. His other jobs include numerous posts at The Wall Street Journal, a senior editor at The Weekly Standard, and a contributing editor at Newsweek and The Atlantic Monthly. He currently is an op-ed columnist for The New York Times since 2003 and a weekly commentator on PBS NewsHour. He is the author of the several books including Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There, On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense, and The Social Animal:… The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement. He is also the editor of the anthology Backward and Upward: The New Conservative Writing. In 2012 David Brooks made the New York Times Best Seller List with his title Social Animal: the Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement.
Stephen L. Carter was born in Washington, D.C. on October 26, 1954. He received a bachelor's degree in history from Stanford University in 1976 and a law degree from Yale University in 1979. After graduation, he served as a law clerk for Judge Spottswood W. Robinson, III, of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. In 1982, he joined the Yale University faculty and is currently the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law. He is the author of numerous non-fiction works including Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby (1991); The Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious… Devotion (1993); The Confirmation Mess: Cleaning Up the Federal Appointments Process (1994); Integrity (1996); The Dissent of the Governed: A Meditation on Law, Religion, and Loyalty (1998); Civility: Manners, Morals, and the Etiquette of Democracy (1998); and God's Name in Vain: The Wrongs and Rights of Religion in Politics (2000). He has also written several fiction works including The Emperor of Ocean Park and Jericho's Fall. He was the first non-theologian to receive the prestigious Louisville-Grawemeyer Award in religion.