Rick Atkinson
Rick Atkinson is an American historian who formerly worked as a journalist for the Washington Post. He is the winner of three Pulitzer Prizes, including for his book An Army at Dawn, the first volume in a Liberation trilogy that covers the Allies’ defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.
Books by Rick Atkinson
An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943
by Rick Atkinson
🏆 Winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for History
An Army at Dawn is volume 1 of The Liberation Trilogy, American historian Rick Atkinson’s three books covering the Allies’ defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.
“I would actually recommend the whole Liberation Trilogy, because they’re all excellent and he means for you to read them together…His point is that you cannot understand the success in Europe unless you watch the countries building their military from North Africa on—particularly the United States, which was totally unprepared to go into World War Two…What makes Atkinson so good is he tells two stories at the same time, and shows how they influence one another. There is the story of these men. And you get letters and so forth, he singles out maybe three as the key ones that you keep going back to. And that’s partly so when, inevitably, one of them dies, you’re just sad. But then he also talks about the commanders and that’s the second theme in the book.” Read more...
Best Books for History Reading Groups
Donna McBride, Historian
Liberation Trilogy Boxset
by Rick Atkinson
American historian Rick Atkinson's Liberation trilogy about World War II in one boxset. The books include An Army at Dawn, about the North African campaign, The Day of Battle, about the Italian campaign, and The Guns at Last Light about D-Day and the fight for Western Europe.
Interviews where books by Rick Atkinson were recommended
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1
The Guns of August
by Barbara W Tuchman -
2
The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present
by John Pomfret -
3
An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943
by Rick Atkinson -
4
A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World
by William Bernstein -
5
BolĂvar: American Liberator
by Marie Arana
Best Books for History Reading Groups, recommended by Donna McBride
Best Books for History Reading Groups, recommended by Donna McBride
It’s a golden age for narrative history, with lots of highly readable books bringing to life many different aspects of the past, says historian Donna McBride. A Fellow of the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture, she has led ‘The Historians’ reading group there for the last five years. Here, she recommends some of the best popular histories the group has read and shares some tips on how to set up and run your own history reading group.
