Rick Atkinson

Rick Atkinson
at 2015 National Book Festival
Born	Lawrence Rush Atkinson IV (1952-11-16) November 16, 1952 (age 64) Munich, then West Germany
Residence	Washington, D.C.
Alma mater	East Carolina University, B.A., 1974 University of Chicago, M.A., 1975
Occupation	Journalist, editor historian, author
Agent	Raphael Sagalyn ICM/Sagalyn 1250 Connecticut Ave NW 7th Floor Washington, DC 20036
Spouse(s)	Jane Ann Chestnut (dentist), May 12, 1979
Children	Rush, Sarah
Parent(s)	Larry Atkinson, Lt. Col. U.S. Army Margaret Jean Atkinson (teacher)
Awards	Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, 1982 Livingston Award for international reporting George Polk Award, Long Island University John Hancock Award for excellence in business and financial journalism, John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co. Pulitzer Prize for History, 2003 Gen. Omar N. Bradley Chair of Strategic Leadership, U.S. Army War College and Dickinson College, 2004-05 Pritzker Military Library Literature Award for lifetime achievement in military writing, 2010 -other awards in journalism
Website	The Liberation Trilogy, by Rick Atkinson | Official Website
Notes

Lawrence Rush "Rick" Atkinson IV (born November 16, 1952) is an American author who has won Pulitzer Prizes in history and journalism.

After working as a newspaper reporter, editor, and foreign correspondent for The Washington Post, Atkinson turned to writing military history. His six books include narrative accounts of four different American wars.

His Liberation Trilogy, a history of the American role in the liberation of Europe in World War II, concluded with the publication of The Guns at Last Light in May 2013. In 2010, he received the $100,000 Pritzker Military Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing.

Atkinson was born in Munich to Margaret (née Howe) and Larry Atkinson, who was a U.S. Army officer. He grew up on military posts around the world, including stints in Salzburg, Georgia, Idaho, Pennsylvania, California, Hawaii, Kansas, and Virginia. Turning down an appointment to West Point, he instead attended East 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 the University of Chicago in 1975.

While visiting his parents for Christmas at Fort Riley, Kansas, in 1975, Atkinson found a job as a newspaper reporter for The Morning Sun in Pittsburg, Kansas, covering crime, local government, and other topics in southeast Kansas, an area known as “the Little Balkans” for its ethnic diversity and fractious politics. In April 1977, he joined the staff of The Kansas City Times, working nights in suburban Johnson County, Kansas, before moving to the city desk and eventually serving as a national reporter; in 1981, he joined the newspaper's bureau in Washington, D.C. He won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting in 1982 for a "body of work" that included a series about the West Point class of 1966, which lost more men in Vietnam than any other Military Academy class. He also contributed to the newspaper's coverage of the Hyatt Regency walkway collapse in Kansas City, Missouri, for which the paper's staff in 1982 was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for local spot news reporting.