The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777

Rick Atkinson is an American author and historian known for his detailed works on military history, particularly World War II and the American Revolution. Atkinson is widely recognized for his ability to render military history with both narrative force and scholarly rigor. Atkinson built his reputation with The Liberation Trilogy, a three-volume history of the United States Army in Europe during World War II. An Army at Dawn (2002), The Day of Battle (2007), and The Guns at Last Light (2013) garnered numerous accolades, including the Pulitzer Prize for History, and established Atkinson as one of the leading practitioners of narrative military history. The British Are Coming is the first installment in the not-yet-finished Revolution Trilogy, which includes The Fate of the Day and a planned third book.

Atkinson’s career began in journalism. He worked for decades at The Washington Post, where he served as a reporter, foreign correspondent, and senior editor. Atkinson’s style as a writer of military history is informed by the clear and unpretentious demands of journalistic writing, as well as the necessity of attention to detail and well-sourced argumentation. This style is especially evident in The British Are Coming.