2026 Winner

Rick Atkinson, The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780

Rick Atkinson

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." 

The first twenty-one months of the American Revolution—which began at Lexington and ended at Princeton—was the story of a ragged group of militiamen and soldiers fighting to forge a new nation. By the winter of 1777, the exhausted Continental Army could claim only that it had barely escaped annihilation by the world’s most formidable fighting force.

Two years into the war, George III is as determined as ever to bring his rebellious colonies to heel. But the king’s task is now far more complicated: fighting a determined enemy on the other side of the Atlantic has become ruinously expensive, and spies tell him that the French and Spanish are threatening to join forces with the Americans.

Prize-winning historian Rick Atkinson provides a riveting narrative covering the middle years of the Revolution. Stationed in Paris, Benjamin Franklin woos the French; in Pennsylvania, George Washington pleads with Congress to deliver the money, men, and materiel he needs to continue the fight. In New York, General William Howe, the commander of the greatest army the British have ever sent overseas, plans a new campaign against the Americans—even as he is no longer certain that he can win this searing, bloody war. The months and years that follow bring epic battles at Brandywine, Saratoga, Monmouth, and Charleston, a winter of misery at Valley Forge, and yet more appeals for sacrifice by every American committed to the struggle for freedom.

Timed to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the beginning of the Revolution, Atkinson’s brilliant account of the lethal conflict between the Americans and the British offers not only deeply researched and spectacularly dramatic history, but also a new perspective on the demands that a democracy makes on its citizens.

David Price

David is the author of five books about the American Revolution, which are available wherever books are sold.

A staff historical interpreter at Washington Crossing Historic Park in Pennsylvania and a volunteer interpreter at Princeton Battlefield State Park in New Jersey, David has written for the Journal of the American Revolution and the Journal of America's Military Past, and by invitation for the Princeton Battlefield Society's An American Revolution Diary, the Swan Historical Foundation newsletter, Discover Concord magazine, the Washington Crossing Historic Park Annual Program Book, and The Bann Disc (the journal of the Coleraine Historical Society in Northern Ireland). In addition, his work is recommended on various websites relating to the Revolutionary War.

David has spoken at numerous book lecture and signing events. He holds degrees in political science from Drew University and Rutgers University—New Brunswick, and was a nonpartisan research analyst with the New Jersey Legislature for thirty-one years. A resident of Lawrence Township, NJ (known as Maidenhead at the time of the Revolution), he is a member of various national and local organizations relating to the Revolutionary War.

The “Ten Crucial Days” winter campaign of 1776-77 is one of the most storied in the annals of military history. David's newest book examines this pivotal moment in the American War of Independence through an interpretive framework that focuses on five key factors: leadership, geography, weather, artillery, and contingency. His narrative differs from earlier works on the subject that are largely a chronological account of this period.

The “Ten Crucial Days” were the canvas on which a masterpiece of bold and enterprising leadership was painted. It may have borne George Washington’s signature, but the brushes were furnished by the officers and common soldiers he commanded and the coloration made vibrant by the hues from various contributing factors: the quality of decision-making on both sides of the conflict, the nature of the terrain, the effects of weather, the roar of cannon fire, and the vagaries of fortune. The confluence of these overlapping factors seemingly conspired to frustrate British designs at a critical moment in their effort to overpower the American rebellion. Although each was important in its own right, their aggregate influence on the course of events reflected the mutually reinforcing nature of these elements.

The quality of leadership is the overriding factor in this analysis, for it was foundational to the issue of this campaign. Incompetent, unimaginative, or uninspiring direction of the Continental Army would not have rescued the rebellion from its military nadir over a fabled few days, regardless of how the other ingredients in Washington's recipe for victory came into play. On the other hand, leadership that met the moment—when combined with the auspicious effects of favorable geography, weather that accommodated the needs of an army, the adept use of numerically superior artillery, and fortuitous developments that fall under the rubric of contingency—could, and did, win the “Ten Crucial Days” and propelled the Revolutionary cause into a lengthy war of attrition that eventuated in American independence.

The second volume of George Washington’s Momentous Year picks up where Volume 1 concluded, in the wake of the Battle of Whitemarsh in early December 1777, with the British army returning to Philadelphia and French officials opening formal negotiations with American diplomats, primarily as a result of what they felt was a surprising and successful Philadelphia campaign by George Washington. Washington’s army now moved westward, across the Schuylkill River, to the most iconic encampment in American history: Valley Forge. Here the story is new and dynamic. Gary Ecelbarger’s original research revises the history of this crucial period, presenting for the first time Washington’s aggressive plan to attack Philadelphia soon after arriving at Valley Forge and the fact that the encamped army was much larger than previously understood.

During this time, Washington confronted challenges to his military authority while deftly solving crises of supply and recruitment. With the aid of Baron von Steuben, he established and trained the first American professional army. Following the Valley Forge encampment, the author takes the reader with the reinvigorated Continental army as it marches across the Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers and into New Jersey to confront Sir Henry Clinton’s crown forces on their way from Philadelphia to New York City. Having ordered an advance corps of veterans to engage the British, they make contact at Monmouth Courthouse near Freehold, New Jersey. As Washington approaches the action, he confronts thousands of his troops retreating around him. In one of the most stirring events of the Revolution, Washington is able to rally his men, reclaim the battlefield and achieve a hard-fought victory. The battle gave notice to the British that the American army would be a formidable foe going forward. 

This engrossing history of the most significant twelve months of the American Revolution enables the reader to understand and appreciate the astounding accomplishment of George Washington and his military aides: the simultaneous emergence of a new, capable army and a strategy that would win the War for Independence.

Kostya Kennedy

KOSTYA KENNEDY is the Editor in Chief of Premium Publishing at Dotdash Meredith. A former Senior Writer and Editor at Sports Illustrated, he is the author of True: The Four Seasons of Jackie Robinson as well as the New York Times bestsellers 56: Joe DiMaggio and the Last Magic Number in Sports and Pete Rose: An American Dilemma. All three books won the CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year. He has taught at Columbia and New York University, and he lives with his family in Westchester County, New York

About The Ride: Paul Revere and the Night that Saved America

Timed for the 250th anniversary of America’s revolution and founding: Paul Revere’s heroic ride, newly told with fresh research into little-known aspects of the story Americans have heard since childhood but hardly understood

On April 18, 1775, a Boston-based silversmith, engraver, and anti-British political operative named Paul Revere set out on a borrowed horse to fulfill a dangerous but crucial mission: to alert American colonists of advancing British troops, which would seek to crush their nascent revolt.

Revere was not the only rider that night, and indeed, he had completed at least 18 previous rides across New England and other colonies, disseminating intelligence about British movements. But this ride was like no other, and its consequences in the months and years to come―as the American Revolution morphed from isolated skirmishes to a full-fledged war―became one of our founding legends.

In The Ride, Kostya Kennedy presents a dramatic new narrative of the events of April 18 and 19, 1775, informed by fresh primary and secondary source research into archives, family letters and diaries, contemporary accounts, and more. Kennedy reveals Revere’s ride to be more complex than it is usually portrayed―a loosely coordinated series of rides by numerous men, near-disaster, capture by British forces, and finally success. While Revere was central to the ride and its plotting, Kennedy reveals the other men (and, perhaps, a woman with information about the movement of British forces) who helped to set in motion the events that would lead to America’s independence.

Thrillingly written in a dramatic, unstoppable narrative, The Ride re-tells an essential American story for a new generation of readers.

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