Carlo D'Este (1936 – November 22, 2020) was an American

military historian Military history is the study of armed conflict in the history of humanity, and its impact on the societies, cultures and economies thereof, as well as the resulting changes to local and international relationships. Professional historians no ...

and

biographer Biographers are authors who write an account of another person's life, while autobiographers are authors who write their own biography. Biographers Countries of working life: Ab=Arabia, AG=Ancient Greece, Al=Australia, Am=Armenian, AR=Ancient Rome ...

author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

of several books, especially on

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. He was a decorated

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

lieutenant colonel Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colon ...

. In 2011, he was awarded the Pritzker Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing. D'Este died at the age of 84 in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Education

D'Este attended New Mexico Military Institute

junior college A junior college (sometimes referred to colloquially as a juco, JuCo or JC) is a post-secondary educational institution offering vocational training designed to prepare students for either skilled trades and technical occupations and workers in ...

in 1956. He received his B.A. (

magna cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...

) from

Norwich University Norwich University – The Military College of Vermont is a private senior military college in Northfield, Vermont. It is the oldest private and senior military college in the United States and offers bachelor's and master's degrees on-campu ...

in 1958, an M.A. from the

University of Richmond The University of Richmond (UR or U of R) is a private liberal arts college in Richmond, Virginia. It is a primarily undergraduate, residential institution with approximately 4,350 undergraduate and graduate students in five schools: the School ...

in 1974, and an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Norwich in 1992. He received his

master's A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

from

in 1974 and then attended

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degr ...

under the G.I. bill.

Career and other work

*Military historian and biographer, 1978–present *Member of

Department of the Army Historical Advisory Committee The Department of the Army Historical Advisory Committee was established in January 1947 within the United States Army. In 1996, it was made a subcommittee of the Department of Defense Historical Advisory Committee. History The Department of the Ar ...

*Honorary member, Board of Fellows of Norwich University *President of the Friends of Norwich Library *Elected trustee of Mashpee

Public Library A public library is a library that is accessible by the general public and is usually funded from public sources, such as taxes. It is operated by librarians and library paraprofessionals, who are also civil servants. There are five fundamen ...

Mashpee, Massachusetts Mashpee ( wam, Mâseepee) is a town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States, on Cape Cod. The population was 15,060 as of 2020. The town is the site of the headquarters and most members of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, one of two fed ...

for 21 years *United States Army, tours of duty in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

and

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making ...

, retired as lieutenant colonel, 1978. *Lecturer at

School of Advanced Military Studies The School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) is one of four United States Army schools that make up the United States Army Command and General Staff College (CGSC) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. This "enormously rigorous" graduate school com ...

United States Army Command and General Staff College The United States Army Command and General Staff College (CGSC or, obsolete, USACGSC) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, is a graduate school for United States Army and sister service officers, interagency representatives, and international military ...

*Founded (with W.E.B. Griffin) the William E. Colby Military Writers' Symposium (1996). That organization presents the

Colby Award The William E. Colby Military Writers' Award was established in 1999 by the William E. Colby Military Writers' Symposium at Norwich University in Vermont in order to recognize "a first work of fiction or non-fiction that has made a major contributi ...

. *Advised

President of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal gove ...

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and again ...

on his visit to

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

, and

Normandy Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...

(1994) A&E adapted his biography of

George S. Patton George Smith Patton Jr. (November 11, 1885 – December 21, 1945) was a general in the United States Army who commanded the Seventh United States Army in the Mediterranean Theater of World War II, and the Third United States Army in France ...

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

for its

Biography (TV series) ''Biography'' is an American documentary television series and media franchise created in the 1960s by David L. Wolper and owned by A&E Networks since 1987. Each episode depicts the life of a notable person with narration, on-camera interviews ...

(and, presumably, its Biography Channel) in 1995. In 1996,

C-SPAN Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American cable and satellite television network that was created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a nonprofit public service. It televises many proceedings of the United States ...

interviewed him about that book on its

Booknotes ''Booknotes'' is an American television series on the C-SPAN network hosted by Brian Lamb, which originally aired from 1989 to 2004. The format of the show is a one-hour, one-on-one interview with a non-fiction author. The series was broadcast at ...

program.

Awards and honors

He was awarded the Andrew J. Goodpaster Prize by the American Veterans Center, 2010. He delivered the annual Kemper Lecture on Winston Churchill at Westminster, College, Fulton, Missouri, 2010. In 2011, he received the $100,000 Pritzker Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing. The award includes an honorarium, citation and medallion, sponsored by the Chicago-based Tawani Foundation. As part of the award, he gave an interview at the

Pritzker Military Museum & Library The Pritzker Military Museum & Library (formerly Pritzker Military Library) is a non-profit museum and a research library for the study of military history on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. The institution was founded in 2003, and its sp ...

on October 21, 2011, reflecting on his writing career in the field of World War II scholarship.

Writings

*''Decision in Normandy: The Unwritten Story of Montgomery and the Allied Campaign'', Dutton (

New York, NY New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

), 1983. *''Bitter Victory: The Battle for

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

, 1943'', Dutton (New York, NY), 1988. *''World War II in the Mediterranean, 1942–1945'', Algonquin (Chapel Hill, NC), 1990. *''Fatal Decision:

Anzio Anzio (, also , ) is a town and '' comune'' on the coast of the Lazio region of Italy, about south of Rome. Well known for its seaside harbour setting, it is a fishing port and a departure point for ferries and hydroplanes to the Pontine Isl ...

and the Battle for

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

'',

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News C ...

(New York, NY), 1991. *''Patton: A Genius for War'', HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1995. *''Eisenhower: A Soldier's Life, 1890–1945'', Henry Holt (New York, NY), 2002. * *(introduction to) "Sicilia 1943. Lo sbarco alleato" by Ezio Costanzo (author), Le Nove Muse Editrice (Catania, Italy), 2003 *(introduction to) ''Battle, the Story of the Bulge'',

John Toland John Toland (30 November 167011 March 1722) was an Irish rationalist philosopher and freethinker, and occasional satirist, who wrote numerous books and pamphlets on political philosophy and philosophy of religion, which are early expressions o ...

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

(New York, NY), 1959 *(contributor to) ''Few Returned: Twenty-eight Days on the Russian Front, Winter 1942–1943'', edited by Eugenio Corti,

University of Missouri Press The University of Missouri Press is a university press operated by the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri and London, England; it was founded in 1958 primarily through the efforts of English professor William Peden. Many publications a ...

(

Columbia, MO Columbia is a city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It is the county seat of Boone County and home to the University of Missouri. Founded in 1821, it is the principal city of the five-county Columbia metropolitan area. It is Missouri's fourth ...

), 1997. * Review of

Rising '44. The Battle for Warsaw ''Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw'' is the title of a documented and illustrated historical account of the Warsaw Uprising by the historian Norman Davies. It was mostly well received by specialists and commentators during its publication. On ...

, by

Norman Davies Ivor Norman Richard Davies (born 8 June 1939) is a Welsh-Polish historian, known for his publications on the history of Europe, Poland and the United Kingdom. He has a special interest in Central and Eastern Europe and is UNESCO Professor a ...

Decorations

Hall of Fame A hall, wall, or walk of fame is a list of individuals, achievements, or other entities, usually chosen by a group of electors, to mark their excellence or fame in their field. In some cases, these halls of fame consist of actual halls or muse ...

, New Mexico Military Institute, 2002 *Norwich University,

D.H.L. The degree of Doctor of Humane Letters (; DHumLitt; DHL; or LHD) is an honorary degree awarded to those who have distinguished themselves through humanitarian and philanthropic contributions to society. The criteria for awarding the degree differ ...

, 1992 *Board of Fellows Service Medallion, Norwich University, 2008

References

External links

Carlo D'Este from HarperCollins Publishers
Publisher's biographic sketch
Patton, Harper Perennial, Carlo D'este, Book - Barnes & Noble
Bookseller's biographical sketch
Carlo D'Este Interview
and biography at The

from February 8, 2007 *
''In Depth'' interview with D'Este, July 6, 2003

Interview
on ''Warlord: a life of Winston Churchill at War, 1874-1945'' at the

on November 13, 2008
Webcast Panel
on U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower with

Geoffrey Perret Geoffrey Perret is an English author who writes about American history. His work focuses primarily upon the political dynamics that influence strategic and tactical military decisions, as well as broader political themes. He has published over th ...

at the

on October 23, 2003 {{DEFAULTSORT:D'Este, Carlo 1936 births Writers from Oakland, California New Mexico Military Institute alumni Norwich University alumni Alumni of the University of London University of Richmond alumni American biographers American male biographers American military historians Historians of World War II United States Army colonels Recipients of the Legion of Merit Historians from California 2020 deaths