David writes a twice-a-week foreign affairs column, and has written eleven spy novels: “The Paladin” (2020), “The Quantum Spy,” (2017), “The Director,” (2014), “Bloodmoney” (2011), “The Increment” (2009), “Body of Lies” (2007), “The Sun King” (1999), “A Firing Offense” (1997), “The Bank of Fear” (1994), “SIRO” (1991), and “Agents of Innocence” (1987). "Body of Lies" was made into a 2008 film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and
Russell Crowe.
Joining The Post in 1986 as editor of its Sunday Outlook section, he became foreign editor in 1990, and in 1993 became assistant managing editor for business news. David’s column began in 1998 and continued even during his three-year stint as executive editor of the International Herald Tribune in Paris, from 2000 to 2003. Earlier in his career, he was a Wall Street Journal reporter, covering at various times the steel industry, the Departments of State and Justice, the CIA, the Senate, and the Middle East. As The Post’s foreign editor, David supervised the newspaper's 1990 Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of Iraqi’s invasion of Kuwait.
Growing up in Washington, D.C., David studied political theory at Harvard College and economics at Kings College, Cambridge. He lives in Washington with his wife and has three daughters.
He has been awarded the George Polk Award, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, the Gerald Loeb Award for Commentary, the Edward Weintal Prize, the Urbino International Press Award, the Overseas Press Club Award for Foreign Affairs Commentary, the Lifetime Achievement Award, of the International Committee for Foreign Journalists, and was awarded the Legion D'Honneur by the French government.