What Do We Need to Remember About the American Revolution…But Have Probably Forgot?

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Join us for a conversation on lessons from the American Revolution with Egan Visiting Professor Rick Atkinson. John Hillen will moderate the discussion.

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.” Ken Burns wrote, “Rick Atkinson takes his place among the greatest of all historians. This superb second volume in his Revolution Trilogy is that rare narrative that keeps you on the edge of your seat.”

Atkinson worked as a reporter, foreign correspondent, and senior editor for two decades at the Washington Post. His last assignments were covering the 101st Airborne during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and writing about roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2007. Previously he served as the assistant managing editor for investigations. Atkinson’s journalism career began at the Pittsburg (Kansas) Morning Sun in 1976; in 1977, he moved to the Kansas City Times, before going to the Washington Post in 1983. Among other assignments, he served as the Post’s Berlin bureau chief, covering not only Germany and NATO, but also spending considerable time in Somalia and Bosnia.

Born in Munich, Germany, Atkinson is the son of a U.S. Army officer and grew up on military posts. He holds a bachelor of arts degree from East Carolina University and a master of arts degree in English literature from the University of Chicago. He and his wife, Dr. Jane Chestnut Atkinson of Lawrence, Kan., a retired researcher and clinician at the National Institutes of Health, live in the District of Columbia. They have two grown children.

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