David Margolick is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, where he has worked since 1996. He covers culture and politics, and his recent subjects have included the retired generals who called for Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation; profiles of both Jack Abramoff and Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the Valerie Plame case; and an examination of Hamas in Gaza. He has also written on Ariel Sharon and Tony Blair. Prior to coming to Vanity Fair, he was the National Legal Affairs Editor at The New York Times, where he wrote the weekly “At the Bar” column and covered the trials of O.J. Simpson, Lorena Bobbitt, and William Kennedy Smith.

Mr. Margolick, a graduate of the University of Michigan and Stanford Law School, is the author, most recently, of Beyond Glory: Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling, and a World on the Brink, published by Knopf in 2005. His prior books are Strange Fruit: The Biography of a Song (2001); At the Bar: The Passions and Peccadillos of American Lawyers (1995); and Undue Influence: The Epic Battle for the Johnson & Johnson Fortune (1993). He lives in New York City.