Clay Risen

Clay Risen is a reporter and editor at The New York Times and the author of several works of American history, including "Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America," which The Chicago Tribune named one of the 10 Best Books of 2025 and a best book of the year by Kirkus Reviews and The New Yorker. He is also the author of "The Crowded Hour," named a 2019 Notable Book by The New York Times; "The Bill of the Century," named a 2014 notable book of the year by The Washington Post; and "A Nation on Fire: America in the Wake of the King Assassination." He is a visiting fellow at the Perry World House at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the Society of American Historians.

As an editor at the Times op-ed section, Risen oversaw two award-winning history series, Vietnam '67 and Disunion, and he was a co-editor of "The New York Times' Disunion: Modern Historians Revisit and Reconsider the Civil War from Lincoln's Election to the Emancipation Proclamation."

Risen is also one of America's leading whiskey experts. He the author of "American Rye: A Guide to America's Original Spirit," "Single Malt: A Guide to the Whiskies of Scotland," "Bourbon: The Story of Kentucky Whiskey," "The Impossible Collection of Whiskey," and "American Whiskey, Bourbon and Rye: A Guide to the Nation's Favorite Spirit," which has sold over 125,000 copies across two editions.

Risen previously worked as an assistant editor at The New Republic and the managing editor of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two children.