Rick Atkinson
Rick Atkinson is the author of eight narrative histories about five American wars. His most recent book, The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780, debuted as the #1 New York Times nonfiction bestseller. The New York Times Book Review declared, "This is great history...There is no better writer of narrative history than the Pulitzer Prize-winning Atkinson." Atkinson previously wrote the Liberation Trilogy, a narrative history of the liberation of Europe in World War II. The first volume, An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943, received the Pulitzer Prize.
Jan. 26, 2026
Episode 23: The Liberation
With a rebellion underway in New England, the Continental Congress orders an invasion of Quebec, confident that Catholic French Canadians will rally to the Patriot standard, a mere fifteen years after Protestant British Americans helped to conquer the old colony of New France for their king. Featur…
Dec. 16, 2025
Episode 22: The Siege
Hours after the Battles of Lexington and Concord, rebel British Americans begin laying siege to Boston, trapping thousands of civilians and soldiers in town for months with dwindling supplies, compelling the British to make a...
Oct. 27, 2025
Episode 20: The Rebellion
With tensions mounting in British America over Parliament’s Coercive Acts, colonists begin losing faith in King George III, while British soldiers march out of Boston to seize arms and ammunition in Lexington and Concord. Fea...