Rick Atkinson, sometime reporter for the Washington Post and author of several books, most recently An Army at Dawn and In the Company of Soldiers, stopped by school today and gave a brief talk to a gathering of students and faculty. Atkinson describes himself as a narrative non-fiction writer and “recovering journalist,” and he divided his writing into three categories: journalism, instant history and true history – or history’s first, second and third drafts. He also said that great events like World War II are “bottomless” and thus can have no final draft. Atkinson called journalists “paid eyewitnesses.”
During the talk, he listed a series of books that are examples of first-hand accounts of war, several of which he encountered researching An Army at Dawn, which is about the Allied liberation of North Africa. Atkinson’s list fits into that second category, instant history in the form of the battle memoir:
- The Battle is the Pay-Off by Ralph Ingersoll – WWII, North Africa
- Road to Tunis by David Rame – WWII, North Africa
- Brave Men by Ernie Pyle – WWII, Europe
- Slightly Out of Focus by Robert Capa (the famous war photographer) – WWII, North Africa and Europe
- The Road Back to Paris by A.J. Liebling (writing for the New Yorker) WWII, Europe
- The End in Africa by Alan Moorhead – WWII, North Africa
- Martyr’s Day: Chronicle of a Small War by Michael Kelly (who died in a humvee accident in Iraq in 2003) – Persian Gulf War
