Rick Atkinson wins American History Book Prize

The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Friday, March 29, 2024


Rick Atkinson wins American History Book Prize
The prize comes with a $50,000 award. Past winners include Eric Foner, Jane Kamensky, Jill Lepore and Gordon Wood.

by Jennifer Schuessler



NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Rick Atkinson, the author of “The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777,” has been named the winner of the New-York Historical Society’s Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize, awarded each year to the best work in the field of U.S. history and biography.

The 800-page doorstop, published last year by Henry Holt, starts with the early skirmishes and continues past the Declaration of Independence, with an intent of dispelling settled, sentimental clichés that have accumulated around public understanding of the Revolution. Historian Joseph Ellis, writing in The New York Times Book Review, praised its combination of deep research, including “almost endless endnotes,” and “novelistic imagination that verges on cinematic.”

Atkinson, a journalist by training, emphasizes the costs and brutality of the Revolution, a conflict, he writes, in which a higher portion of the population died than in any other U.S. conflict, save the Civil War (in part because of infectious disease). It’s a darker view that’s in tune with recent scholarship on the Revolution, as well as with Atkinson’s previous work, including his trilogy about World War II.

“I’ve spent a professional lifetime writing about American wars to figure out how and why they were fought, and in hopes of conveying to readers that every one of them was fundamentally tragic,” Atkinson, the son of an Army officer, said in a statement.

The prize comes with a $50,000 award. Past winners include Eric Foner, Jane Kamensky, Jill Lepore and Gordon Wood.


© 2020 The New York Times Company










Today's News

March 19, 2020

Met Museum prepares for $100 million loss and closure till July

Reframing the Prado

Lifetime retrospective of Jasper Johns's work to open simultaneously in New York and Philadelphia

Taschen reprints 'Les diners de Gala'

Paul Holberton Publishing releases new book featuring 18th century drawings from The Crocker Art Museum

Rare comics, original comic art, Star Wars figures and political items make a strong showing at Hake's $1.5M auction

Coronavirus: Swiss art tech company offers solution for highly affected art industry

MIA Photo Fair 2020 postponed to September

Historic 1858 Proof Liberty Eagle gold coin offered at Heritage Auctions

The Kinkade Family Foundation announces emergency grant for curators

As Studio 54 boogies to Brooklyn, its denizens look back in wonder

Modern American & European printmakers lead Prints & Drawings auction at Swann

It was their big debut. Then a pandemic hit.

Pixar pioneers win $1 million Turing Award

Meem Gallery opens third edition of its Modern Masters exhibition series

African music legend Dibango in hospital with coronavirus

Belgrade: Leading institution damaged by local politics

Complete archive of award-winning novelist Andrea Levy acquired for the nation

Stuart Whitman, leading man on big and small Screens, dies at 92

Disconcerted: A music critic's empty nights

Paris, a Magnet for the World, Becomes a Ghost City After a Lockdown Takes Effect

Rick Atkinson wins American History Book Prize

Workers behind the concert stars are hurting

Maria Fernanda Cardoso awarded 2020 NSW Visual Arts Established Fellow

Do Beginners Need Special Golf Clubs?

How to Choose the Best Comfortable Earpods?




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful