Taylor Branch Bio

Taylor Branch Biography

The Pulitzer prize winning author and writer of the 2009 book, The Clinton Tapes, based on his interviews with president Bill Clinton, is also a well known American historian and editor for many American publications.

Taylor Branch was born on January 14th 1947 in Atlanta Georgia, and attended the University of North Carolina on a Morehead scholarship. Following his graduation from university in 1968 Taylor went on to study for his Master of Public Administration (MPA) a degree which is a professional graduate degree in Public Administration, while attending the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at the Ivy League collage at Princeton in New Jersey during 1970.

Branch later became a lecturer in politics and history at Goucher College which is a private, co-educational, liberal arts college located in the northern Baltimore suburb of Towson in unincorporated Baltimore County, Maryland. This part of his career occupied the years between 1998 until 2000.

Serving as an assistant editor at The Washington Monthly from 1970 to 1973 he followed that with yet another Washington based position as editor of Harper's from 1973 to 1976 and again in Washington he became columnist for Esquire Magazine from 1976 to 1977.


Taylor’s work as a writer has also seen him working for a wide variety of other publications, including The New York Times Magazine, Sport, The New Republic, and Texas Monthly.

In his work as an historian Taylor published his award-winning trilogy of books chronicling the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. and some of the history of the American civil rights movement, concluding his trilogy with the third and final volume collectively called America in the King Years in January 2006.

The campaign for the Democratic presidential nominee, George McGovern, was aided by Branch’s vast knowledge of politics and public administration in 1972, when his co-worker was Bill Clinton.

During his career as a writer, Branch has penned several memoirs, not least among the most famous is Blind Ambition which mainly deals with the Watergate scandal through the memoirs of John Dean, who was White House Counsel to President Richard Nixon from July 1970 until April 1973. In that position Dean became deeply involved in events leading up to the Watergate burglaries and the subsequent Watergate scandal cover up, and was even referred to as "master manipulator of the cover up" by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Along with his high profile publication relating to the Watergate scandal, it was probably Branch’s years with Clinton that made him a household name when he released his book based on tapes he had recorded with the former president entitled, The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History With The President. The book was written from the many hours of tapes kkjjhad recorded while Clinton spoke candidly about his time in the White House and his involvement with Monica Lewinsky and the ensuing impeachment trial to which he was subjected in 1999.

In 2008, Taylor Branch received the Dayton Literary Peace Prize's Lifetime Achievement Award.

Branch now lives in Baltimore, Maryland with his wife, Christina Macy, and their two children, Macy who was born 1980 and Franklin born to the couple in 1983.




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