About

A former senior writer and foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, G. Bruce Knecht is the author of Grand Ambition as well as The Proving Ground.

After joining the Journal in 1993, he wrote about the banking industry and pursued investigative projects until 1995 when he began covering publishing—books, magazines, newspapers, and the press. In 1998, the Journal nominated his articles about how advertisers and retailers secretly influenced the editorial content of major magazines for two Pulitzer Prizes. The same stories won an award from the University of Missouri Journalism School.

In 1998, Bruce moved to Hong Kong to become the Journal’s Asia Correspondent. His article about children of American servicemen who were still living in Vietnam won a Human Rights Press Award.

Bruce took a leave of absence from the Journal to write The Proving Ground, which was originally published in 2001 by Little Brown in the United States as well as publishers in several other countries. CNN produced a documentary based on the book. Hooked was published by Rodale and several overseas publishers in 2006.

He was a London-based free-lance writer from 1991 to 1994, focusing on business and economic topics, particularly those involving the collapse of the Soviet Union. His articles have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine, Barron’s, Conde Nast Traveler, SAIL, Smithsonian, The Independent (UK), National Review, and Men’s Journal.

Born in Morristown, New Jersey, Bruce received a bachelor’s degree from Colgate University and has served on the board of directors of its alumni corporation. He earned an M.B.A. from Harvard University and was a Reuters Fellow at Oxford University.

An avid sailor, Bruce raced across the Atlantic Ocean in 2005 aboard Mari-Cha IV, which broke the 100-year-old transatlantic race record. He is a member of Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club and the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club.