Rick Atkinson, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and #1 New York Times bestselling author, to speak in Knoxville

WHEN: Monday, June 23, 2025 @ 7:00 p.m.

WHERE: First Presbyterian Church of Knoxville, 620 State Street, Knoxville, TN

Pulitzer Prize–winning historian and #1 New York Times bestselling author Rick Atkinson, one of our modern era’s preeminent historians, will be in Knoxville on Monday, June 23, 2025, to speak about his most recent book, The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780. The East Tennessee Historical Society will host Atkinson’s talk at First Presbyterian Church at 7:00 p.m., preceded by a VIP reception for a limited number of guests at 5:30 pm at the East Tennessee History Center.

“As a part of our ongoing celebration of America’s 250th, we are honored to host such a significant historian whose works have contributed greatly to our understanding of American military history,” says Dr. Warren Dockter, President/CEO of the East Tennessee Historical Society.

About Fate of the Day

Released by Crown Publishing to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the beginning of America’s war for independence, The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780, is the second volume of the landmark Revolution Trilogy by Atkinson, the bestselling author of The British Are Coming.

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, King George III is as determined as ever to bring his rebellious colonies to heel. But the king’s task is now exponentially 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.

Here, 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, an infamous winter of misery in Valley Forge, and yet more appeals for sacrifice by every American committed to the struggle for freedom.

A winner of Pulitzer Prizes for history and journalism, Rick Atkinson has produced a remarkable oeuvre of bestselling history that includes the Liberation Trilogy,(the first volume, An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942–1943, received the Pulitzer in History), The Long Gray Line, Crusade, In the Company of Soldiers, and The British Are Coming, the critically acclaimed first volume of his Revolution Trilogy. A multi-week New York Times bestseller, The British Are Coming, won the George Washington Prize (awarded by Mount Vernon and its partners), the New-York Historical Society’s Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize, the Daughters of the American Revolution Excellence in American History Book Award, and the Fraunces Tavern Museum Book Award.

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.

VIP Tickets – $120 ($110 for ETHS Members)
Limited VIP tickets available

• Reception and book signing at 5:30 pm at the East Tennessee History Center, 601 S. Gay St
• A copy of The Fate of the Day
• Reserved seating for Atkinson’s talk at 7:00 pm at the First Presbyterian Church of Knoxville, 620 State St
• VIP ticket sales close June 6

General Admission Tickets – $20 ($15 for ETHS Members)

• Admission for Atkinson’s Talk at 7:00 pm (doors open at 6:15 pm) at the First Presbyterian Church of Knoxville, 620 State St

For more information about this event and to purchase tickets, visit https://www.easttnhistory.org/event/the-fate-of-the-day-the-war-for-america-fort-ticonderoga-to-charleston-1777-1780-with-rick-atkinson/.