Alterman is the author of the national bestsellers, What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News (2003,2004), and The Book on Bush: How George W. (Mis)leads America (with Mark Green, 2004,2005). His most recent book is When Presidents Lie: A History of Deception and its Consequences, (2004,2006. His Sound & Fury: The Making of the Punditocracy (1992, 2000), won the 1992 George Orwell Award and his It Ain't No Sin to be Glad You're Alive: The Promise of Bruce Springsteen (1999, 2001), won the 1999 Stephen Crane Literary Award. Alterman is also the author of Who Speaks for America? Why Democracy Matters in Foreign Policy, (1998).

A frequent lecturer and contributor to virtually every significant national publication in the US and many in Europe, in recent years, he has also been a columnist for: Worth, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, and The Sunday Express (London). A senior fellow of the World Policy Institute at New School University, and former Adjunct Professor of Journalism at NYU and Columbia, Alterman received his B.A. in History and Government from Cornell, his M.A. in International Relations from Yale, and his Ph.D. in US History from Stanford. He lives with his family in Manhattan where he is at work on a history of postwar American liberalism.