After receiving his undergraduate degree in history in 1975,[4] he worked for a year doing sales in his family's cutlery business before returning to Jesuit High School to teach mathematics.

During this period he came to realize that he wanted to write for a living, and determined his love of history might provide an avenue for him to do so.

He wrote his dissertation on the Eisenhower administration and its foreign policy during the Cold War, earning his PhD in history in 1985.

His preferred mode of transit was his bicycle, as he commuted between classes at the University of Texas and his teaching responsibilities at the college preparatory school on the fringe of the UT campus and ACC's Rio Grande site in Central Austin.

In his first year after completing his doctorate, Brands worked as an oral historian at the University of Texas School of Law.

"In revering the founders we undervalue ourselves and sabotage our own efforts to make necessary improvements in the republican experiment they began.

"[11] In addition to his works on U.S. history, Brands has written books on the economic development of the United States and biographies of key leaders in corporate America.

Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt was his second finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

His writings have been published in several countries and translated into German, French, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.