Thurston Clarke (born 1946) is an American

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

, author and

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...

Education and career

Clarke was educated at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

and the

School of Oriental and African Studies SOAS University of London (; the School of Oriental and African Studies) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury ...

, London. Clarke is the author of thirteen books, the most recent of which is ''Honorable Exit: How a Few Brave Americans Risked All to Save Our Vietnamese Allies at the End of the War''. Clarke is a frequent speaker on topics such as writing, modern history and travel and has appeared in documentaries.

Honors and awards

Clarke is the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship. He has also received the Lowell Thomas Award for Travel Literature.

Personal life

He lives with his wife and three daughters in the

Adirondacks The Adirondack Mountains (; a-də-RÄN-dak) form a massif in northeastern New York with boundaries that correspond roughly to those of Adirondack Park. They cover about 5,000 square miles (13,000 km2). The mountains form a roughly circular d ...

, in upstate New York. His daughter,

Sophie Clarke Sophie Georgina Clarke (born July 10, 1989) is a reality television personality known for competing in and winning '' Survivor: South Pacific''. She later returned for the show's 40th season '' Survivor: Winners at War'', where she finished in t ...

, was the winner of '' Survivor: South Pacific'', the 23rd season of the popular CBS reality television show. Thurston Clarke is the son-in-law of former British

Ambassador An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or s ...

Julian Bullard Sir Julian Leonard Bullard (8 March 1928 – 25 May 2006) was a British diplomat and Pro-Chancellor of Birmingham University. He was employed at Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service from 1953 until 1988, the ambassador to Bonn in the mid-1980s as ...

List of works

Non-fiction

*''Dirty Money: Swiss Banks, the Mafia, Money Laundering, and White Collar Crime'' (1975) (with John J. Tigue) *''The Last Caravan'' (1978) *''By Blood and Fire: The Attack on the King David Hotel'' (1981) *''Lost Hero: The Mystery of Raoul Wallenberg'' (1982) (with Frederick E. Werbell) *''Equator: A Journey'' (1988) *''Pearl Harbor Ghosts'' (1991) *''California Fault: Searching for the Spirit of a State Along the San Andreas'' (1996) *''Searching for Crusoe: A Journey Among the Last Real Islands'' (2001) (reprinted as ''Islomania'') *''Ask Not: The Inauguration of John F. Kennedy and The Speech That Changed America'' (2004) *''The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days That Inspired America'' (2008) *''JFK's Last Hundred Days: The Transformation of a Man and The Emergence of a Great President'' (2013) *''Honorable Exit: How a Few Brave Americans Risked All to Save Our Vietnamese Allies at the End of the War'' (2019)

Fiction

*''Thirteen O'Clock'' (1984)

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Clarke, Thurston 1946 births Living people 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers 20th-century American novelists American male journalists Yale University alumni Columbia University alumni Alumni of SOAS University of London American male novelists 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers American male non-fiction writers