author
David Marshall Brooks
1902–1994
A psychologist by training, he wrote in a direct, unsparing style that challenged religious belief and defended freethought. His best-known work, The Necessity of Atheism, still stands out for its blunt, argumentative energy.
1 Audiobook
The Necessity of Atheism
by David Marshall Brooks
About the author
Born on June 15, 1902, David Marshall Brooks is identified in library and public-domain records as Dr. David Marshall Brooks, a psychologist and writer. The sources available for him are quite sparse, but they consistently distinguish him from the much better-known newspaper columnist David Brooks.
He is chiefly remembered for The Necessity of Atheism, a work that argues openly against religious doctrine and in favor of rational inquiry. Listings from Wikisource, LibriVox, Goodreads, and Project Gutenberg all connect that book to him and place his life span as 1902–1994.
Because reliable biographical detail is limited, it is safest to describe him as a psychologist and polemical nonfiction writer whose reputation rests largely on that one enduring freethought text.