Thomas E. Ricks
Ricks at the 2022 Texas Book Festival
Born	Thomas Edwin Ricks (1955-09-25)September 25, 1955 (age 70) Beverly, Massachusetts, U.S.
Education	BA
Alma mater	Yale University, 1977
Occupations	Writer, journalist,editor, and educator
Employer	Center for a New American Security
Known for	critique of U.S. national security policy, especiallyOperation Iraqi Freedom
Awards	2000Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting (onWall Street Journal team) 2002 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting (onWashington Post team) Society of Professional Journalists Award for best feature reporting 2007 Distinguished alumnus ofScarsdale High School
Notes
[1][2][3][4]

Thomas Edwin "Tom" Ricks (born September 25, 1955)^[5] is an American journalist and author who specializes in the military and national security issues. He is a two-time winner of thePulitzer Prize for National Reporting as part of teams from theWall Street Journal (2000) andWashington Post (2002). He has reported on U.S. military activities inSomalia,Haiti,Korea,Bosnia,Kosovo,Macedonia,Kuwait,Turkey,Afghanistan, andIraq. He previously wrote a blog forForeign Policy^[6][7] and is a member of theCenter for a New American Security,^[8] a defense policythink tank.

Ricks lectures widely to the military and is a member ofHarvard University's Senior Advisory Council on the Project on U.S. Civil-Military Relations. Ricks is the author of several nonfiction books includingMaking the Corps (1997); the bestsellingFiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (2006) and its follow-up,The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006–2008 (2009); the bestsellingFirst Principles: What America's Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country (2020);^[9][10] andWaging a Good War: A Military History of the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1968 (2022).

Ricks was born in Beverly, Massachusetts, and grew up in New York andAfghanistan, one of six children. He is the son of Anne and David Frank Ricks, a professor ofpsychology.^[11] He attended the American International School in Kabul (1968–1970), including hisfreshman year of high school.^[12] He graduated fromScarsdale High School (1973).^[4]

After earning a B.A. fromYale University (1977), he was an instructor atLingnan College, Hong Kong (1977–1979), and assistant editor at theWilson Quarterly (1979–1981). At theWall Street Journal he was a reporter (1982–1985) and deputy Miami bureau chief (1986). In Washington, D.C., he was aJournal reporter (1987–1989), feature editor (1989–1992), andPentagon correspondent, (1992–1999). He was a militarycorrespondent at theWashington Post (2000–2008).^[1][2][5]

While at theWall Street Journal, he was one of the reporters writing the "Price of Power" series discussing United States defense spending and potential changes confronting the US military following theCold War. The series won theJournal the 2000Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting. He won a secondPulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2002 as part ofThe Washington Post team for reporting about the beginnings of the U.S. counteroffensive against terrorism.

Ricks was a finalist for the 2007Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for his bookFiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq.^[13]

Ricks was immensely critical ofFox News' coverage of the2012 Benghazi attack. While being interviewed byJon Scott, Ricks accused Fox News of being "extremely political" in its coverage of the attack and stated, "Fox was operating as a wing of theRepublican Party."^[14]

• Making the Corps. Scribner, 1997. ISBN 0684848171
• Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq. Penguin Group, 2006.ISBN 1-59420-103-X
• The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006–2008. The Penguin Press, 2009. ISBN 978-1-59420-197-4
• The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today. Penguin Press, 2012. ISBN 978-1-59420-404-3
• Churchill & Orwell: The Fight for Freedom. Penguin Press, 2017. ISBN 978-1-59420-613-9
• First Principles: What America's Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country. Harper, 2020. ISBN 978-0-06-299745-6
• Waging a Good War: A Military History of the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1968. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022. ISBN 978-0-374-60516-2^[10]

• A Soldier's Duty. Random House, 2001. ISBN 978-0-375-50544-7^[9][10]
• Everyone Knows But You. Pegasus Crime, 2024. ISBN 978-1-639-366798
• We Can't Save You. Pegasus Crime, forthcoming 2025. ISBN 978-1-639-369072

Wikimedia Commons has media related toThomas E. Ricks.

• Foreign Policy bio
• Ricks discussesFiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq at thePritzker Military Museum & Library on October 5, 2006
• Ricks discussesThe Gamble: General David Petraeus & the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008 at thePritzker Military Museum & Library on September 10, 2009
• Appearances onC-SPAN

• 1955 births
• Living people
• American foreign policy writers
• American male non-fiction writers
• The Atlantic (magazine) people
• Historians of the Iraq War
• People from Beverly, Massachusetts
• Writers from Scarsdale, New York
• Journalists from Scarsdale, New York
• Scarsdale High School alumni
• The Wall Street Journal people
• The Washington Post people
• Writers from Massachusetts
• Yale University alumni
• Harvard Kennedy School people
• Historians of the civil rights movement

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
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• People appearing on C-SPAN