Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Rick Atkinson to headline next Presidential Lecture

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, bestselling author and historian Rick Atkinson, known for his gripping narratives of military conflict from the American Revolution and World War II to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, will join interim Purdue President Mitch Daniels next month for a Presidential Lecture Series event as part of the university’s yearlong celebration of the nation’s 250th birthday.

The event, titled “America @ 250: Celebrating Freedom’s Giant Leap,” is at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 16, in Stewart Center’s Fowler Hall. The event is free and open to the general public, but a ticket is required. For tickets and additional details, go here. This event will mark the first for Daniels since he returned to Purdue as interim president in July. Daniels launched the lecture series in 2014, his first full year as Purdue’s president.

The Purdue Convocations bag policy will be followed for the event. A commemorative gift will be given to departing Presidential Lecture Series attendees as part of Purdue’s celebration of America’s 250th. Parking ticket validation also will be available for the Grant Street Parking Garage.

“What a tremendous privilege and honor all Americans have this year to be able to celebrate the 250th birthday of our nation’s founding document, the Declaration of Independence, which remains the statement that the entire world associates with the great leap forward for freedom and the American experiment,” Daniels said. “And what better person than noted historian Rick Atkinson to help advance our understanding in highlighting the importance of this moment in our history, particularly the role that Purdue can play as a leading land-grant institution.”

Throughout his writing, Atkinson has built a body of work that combines meticulous research with elegant prose.

Atkinson is the author of the New York Times bestseller “The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777,” the first volume of his acclaimed Revolution Trilogy. The second volume in the planned trilogy, “The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780,” was a New York Times No. 1 nonfiction bestseller in 2025. The book continued Atkinson’s sweeping narrative of the Revolution, capturing the conflict’s critical middle years with vivid storytelling and deep historical insight.

Atkinson served as a historical advisor and an on-camera commentator for Ken Burns’ PBS documentary series “The American Revolution,” which commemorates the nation’s 250th anniversary.

He also is the author of the Liberation Trilogy, a definitive history of the liberation of Europe in World War II. The first volume, “An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943,” won the Pulitzer Prize for history. It was followed by “The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944,” and “The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945,” which became a New York Times No. 1 bestseller and was hailed as “history written at the level of literature.”

His other books include “The Long Gray Line,” a narrative account of the West Point Class of 1966; “Crusade,” about the Persian Gulf War of 1990-91; and “In the Company of Soldiers,” which chronicles his time embedded with Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus and the 101st Airborne Division during the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

In addition to winning Pulitzer Prizes for history, national reporting and public service, Atkinson has received the George Polk Award, the Pritzker Military Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement, and the Samuel Eliot Morison Prize. He has served as the Omar N. Bradley Chair of Strategic Leadership at the U.S. Army War College and remains on its adjunct faculty.

A former reporter, foreign correspondent and senior editor at the Washington Post, Atkinson has reported from extended stints in Somalia, Bosnia, Iraq and many other countries, where he earned a reputation as one of America’s most incisive chroniclers of war and leadership.

Born in Munich, Germany, and raised on military posts as the son of a U.S. Army officer, Atkinson holds a master’s degree in English literature from the University of Chicago.

About the Presidential Lecture Series

Launched in 2014, the Presidential Lecture Series exposes Purdue students and the broader community to inspiring ideas, courageous leadership, and models of civic engagement and civil discourse. The Presidential Lecture Series has hosted some of the great intellectual, business and civic leaders of our time. As one of the world’s premier centers of scholarly leadership, Purdue is — appropriately and necessarily — a regular venue for great thinkers across a wide variety of disciplines.

About Purdue University

Purdue University is a research institution ranked among the top 10 public universities in the United States. More than 106,000 students study at Purdue across multiple campuses, including more than 57,000 at our main campus locations in West Lafayette and Indianapolis. As a land-grant university committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue’s main campus has frozen tuition 14 years in a row, enabling more students than ever to graduate debt-free.