Lawrence Rush "Rick"Atkinson IV (born November 15, 1952) is an American author and journalist.
After working as a newspaper reporter, editor, and foreign correspondent forThe Washington Post, Atkinson turned to writingmilitary history. His eight books include narrative accounts of five different American wars. He has wonPulitzer Prizes in history and journalism.[1]
Atkinson was born inMunich to Margaret (née Howe) and Larry Atkinson, who was aU.S. Army officer. Turning down an appointment toWest Point,[3] he instead attendedEast Carolina University on a full scholarship, graduating with a bachelor of arts degree in English in 1974. He received a master of arts degree in English language and literature from theUniversity of Chicago in 1975.[4]
While visiting his parents for Christmas atFort Riley, Kansas, in 1975, Atkinson found a job as a newspaper reporter forThe Morning Sun inPittsburg, Kansas, covering crime, local government, and other topics in southeast Kansas, an area known as "the LittleBalkans" for its ethnic diversity and fractious politics. In April 1977, he joined the staff ofThe Kansas City Times, working nights in suburbanJohnson County, Kansas before moving to the city desk and eventually serving as a national reporter.[5]
In 1981, he joined the newspaper's bureau in Washington, D.C. He won thePulitzer Prize for national reporting in 1982[5] for a "body of work" that included a series about theWest Point class of 1966, which lost more men inVietnam than any otherMilitary Academy class. He also contributed to the newspaper's coverage of theHyatt Regency walkway collapse inKansas City, Missouri, for which the paper's staff in 1982 was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for local spot news reporting.[6]
In November 1983, Atkinson was hired as a reporter on the national staff ofThe Washington Post. He wrote about defense issues, the1984 presidential election. He covered Rep.Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman vice-presidential candidate for a major party, and national topics. In 1985, he became deputy national editor, overseeing coverage of defense, diplomacy, and intelligence. In 1988, he returned to reporting as a member of thePost investigative staff, writing about public housing in the District of Columbia and the secret history of Project Senior C.J., which became theB-2 stealth bomber.[7]
In 1991, he was the newspaper's lead writer during thePersian Gulf War. In 1993, he joined the foreign staff as bureau chief inBerlin, covering Germany andNATO and spending time in Somalia and Bosnia. He returned from Europe in 1996 to become assistant managing editor for investigations; in that role, he headed a seven-member team that for more than a year scrutinized shootings by the District of Columbia police department, resulting in "Deadly Force," a series for which thePost was awarded thePulitzer Prize for Public Service.[8]
Atkinson is a presidential counselor at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans,[11] a member of the Society of American Historians,[12] and an inductee in the Academy of Achievement, for which he also serves as a board member.[13] He formerly served on the governing commission of theNational Portrait Gallery.[14] Atkinson is married and has two children.
Atkinson's first book, written while on leave from thePost, wasThe Long Gray Line: The American Journey of West Point's Class of 1966. A 1989 review inTime magazine called it "brilliant history",[15] andBusiness Week reviewer Dave Griffiths called it "the best book out of Vietnam to date".[5] AuthorJames Salter, reviewing the book forThe Washington Post Book World, wrote, "Enormously rich in detail and written with a novelist's brilliance, the pages literally hurry before one."[16]
In 1993, Atkinson wroteCrusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War. In a review,The Wall Street Journal wrote, "No one could have been better prepared to write a book on Desert Storm, and Atkinson'sCrusade does full justice to the opportunity."[17]
In May 2013, volume three,The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944–1945, was published by Henry Holt and Co., and was ranked #1 on theNew York Times Hardcover Nonfiction[18] and Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction[19][20] bestseller lists. A review inThe New York Times called the book "a tapestry of fabulous richness and complexity...Atkinson is a master of what might be called 'pointillism history,' assembling the small dots of pure color into a vivid, tumbling narrative ... The Liberation Trilogy is a monumental achievement."[21]
In May 2019, the first book in the Revolution Trilogy,The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775–1777[22], was published by Henry Holt and edited, as all of Atkinson's books have been, by John Sterling. TheNew York Times selectedThe British Are Coming for its 100 Notable Books of 2019.[23] It won the 2020George Washington Book Prize.[24] Reviewer Joseph J. Ellis, writing on the front page of theNew York Times Book Review, wrote, "To say that Atkinson can tell a story is like saying Sinatra can sing."[25]
The second volume of the Revolution Trilogy,The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780, was published in April 2025, and debuted at number one on theNew York Times nonfiction bestseller list. A review in theNew York Times Book Review by Amy S. Greenberg, head of the history department at Penn State University, stated, "There is no better writer of narrative history than the Pulitzer Prize-winning Atkinson, who is able to transport readers to a different time and place without minimizing the differences of the past from the present."[26] Reviewer C.W. Goodyear wrote in theWashington Post, "Atkinson writes with tremendous verve and detail. The result is a book that infuses the events and leaders of the war with striking vibrancy, essentially bringing the conflict to life again."[27] Atkinson also appears repeatedly in the 2025 Ken Burns' documentary,The American Revolution. Burns has written that "Rick Atkinson takes his place among the greatest of all historians."
In 2019, Atkinson was named a Vincent J. Dooley Distinguished Fellow by theGeorgia Historical Society, an honor that recognizes national leaders in the field of history as both writers and educators whose research has enhanced or changed the way the public understands the past.[28]
The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775–1777. Henry Holt and Co. 2019.ISBN9781627790437. (The Revolution Trilogy Vol. 1)[47]
The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777–1780. Crown.ISBN9780593799185. (The Revolution Trilogy Vol. 2, Apr. 29, 2025)[48]
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