Morgan Scott Peck (1936–2005) was an American psychiatrist and best-selling author. He was born on May 22, 1936, in New York. He earned his bachelor's degree from Harvard, did premedical studies at Columbia University and received his medical degree from Case Western Reserve University. He served in the U.S. Army, rising to lieutenant colonel. His Army assignments included stints as chief of psychology at the Army Medical Center in Okinawa, Japan, and assistant chief of psychiatry and neurology in the office of the surgeon general in Washington.