Eric "Rick" Perlstein is a historian, author, and journalist. His work has focused on the 1960's and 1970's and the American conservative movement. He is currently a contributing writer at The Nation.Formerly, Perlstein was chief national correspondent for the Village Voice and a former online columnist for the New Republic and Rolling Stone. His work has appeared in Newsweek and The New York Times. After university, Perlstein interned at Lingua Franca and became an associate editor. He also began writing book reviews for publications like The Nation and Slate. He won a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, which allowed him to continue his research and writing.Perlstein's first book, "Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus," was published in 2001. He has published three subsequent books.Perlstein did graduate study in American studies at the University of Michigan.