Author Biography of The Book of Virtues

William J. Bennett is a leading American education expert. He served as Secretary of Education and Chairman of the National Committee on Charitable Contributions during the Reagan Administration and as Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy during the Bush Administration. He received his Ph.D. in political science from the State of Texas and his J.D. from Harvard University. Dr. Bennett is currently one of the two presidents of the Association for the Revitalization of America, a senior fellow in the Cultural Policy Research Unit of the Heritage Foundation, and a senior editor of National Review. He lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland, with his wife and two only children.

He is also a frequent guest on television polemical programs and has toured the country as a moralist. But Bennett was revealed by magazines such as Newsweek and The Atlantic Monthly to be a "frequent visitor" to two of the nation's biggest gambling capitals, Atlantic City and Las Vegas, according to casino records.

Bennett later publicly admitted his longtime involvement in gambling: "I gambled too much. I didn't want to be such a bad influence. So my gambling days are over."