David Emanuel Hoffman (born August 5, 1953) is an American writer and journalist, a contributing editor to ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

''. He won a

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...

in 2010 for a book about the legacy of the

nuclear arms race The nuclear arms race was an arms race competition for supremacy in nuclear warfare between the United States, the Soviet Union, and their respective allies during the Cold War. During this same period, in addition to the American and Soviet nuc ...

Journalism

Hoffman was born in

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto (; Spanish language, Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree kno ...

and grew up in

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent Del ...

, where he attended the

University of Delaware The University of Delaware (colloquially UD or Delaware) is a public land-grant research university located in Newark, Delaware. UD is the largest university in Delaware. It offers three associate's programs, 148 bachelor's programs, 121 mas ...

. He came to Washington D.C. in 1977 to work for the Capitol Hill News Service. As a member of the Washington bureau of the ''

San Jose Mercury News ''The Mercury News'' (formerly ''San Jose Mercury News'', often locally known as ''The Merc'') is a morning daily newspaper published in San Jose, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is published by the Bay Area News Group, a subsidiar ...

'', he covered

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

's 1980 presidential campaign. In May 1982, he joined ''

'' to help cover the Reagan White House. He also covered the first two years of the

George H. W. Bush George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; pr ...

presidency. His White House coverage won three national journalism awards. After reporting on the

State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the country's fore ...

, he became Jerusalem bureau chief for ''The Washington Post'' in 1992. After studying Russian at

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

, he began six years in Moscow. From 1995 to 2001, he served as Moscow bureau chief, and later as foreign editor and assistant managing editor for foreign news. Hoffman's first book was published by

PublicAffairs PublicAffairs (or PublicAffairs Books) is an imprint of Perseus Books, an American book publishing company located in New York City and has been a part of the Hachette Book Group since 2016. PublicAffairs was launched in 1997 by Peter Osnos. ...

in 2002, '' The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia''. He won the annual

Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction The Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are awarded annually for the "Letters, Drama, and Music" category. The award is given to a nonfiction book written by an American author and published duri ...

in 2010 for his second book, '' The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy'' (Doubleday, 2009). The Prize citation termed it "a well documented narrative that examines the terrifying doomsday competition between two superpowers and how weapons of mass destruction still imperil humankind.""The 2010 Pulitzer Prize Winners: General Nonfiction"
The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved November 20, 2013. With short biography and publisher's description. In 2015, Hoffman published '' The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal'' about the life of

Adolf Tolkachev Adolf Georgiyevich Tolkachev (russian: Адольф Георгиевич Толкачёв; 6 January 1927 in Aktyubinsk (now Aktobe), Kazakh ASSR, Soviet Union – 24 September 1986) was a Soviet electronics engineer who provided key documents to ...

, who was arrested and executed for giving classified information to the CIA.

Bibliography

* '' The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia'' (PublicAffairs, 2002), * '' The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy'' (Doubleday, 2009), * '' The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal'', New York, Doubleday, 2015, (about

)

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hoffman, David E. American newspaper reporters and correspondents Living people Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction winners The Washington Post journalists Writers from Palo Alto, California American male journalists 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American journalists 21st-century American non-fiction writers The Mercury News people 1953 births