David Laskin is an American writer of books about history, travel, weather, gardens and literary biography.

Biography

Born and raised in Great Neck, New York

Great Neck, New York

The term Great Neck is commonly applied to a peninsula on the North Shore of Long Island, which includes the village of Great Neck, the village of Great Neck Estates, the village of Great Neck Plaza, and others, as well as an area south of the peninsula near Lake Success and the border of Queens...

, Laskin graduated from John L. Miller North Senior High

Great Neck North High School

John L. Miller Great Neck North High School or simply "North High," or "North," is a public high school, including grades 9 through 12, in the village of Great Neck, New York, operated by the Great Neck School District...

 and went to Harvard College

Harvard College

Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...

 (BA in history and literature in 1975) and New College, Oxford

New College, Oxford

New College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.- Overview :The College's official name, College of St Mary, is the same as that of the older Oriel College; hence, it has been referred to as the "New College of St Mary", and is now almost always...

 (MA

Master of Arts (postgraduate)

A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...

 in English, 1977). He worked in the editorial department of Bantam Books

Bantam Books

Bantam Books is an American publishing house owned entirely by Random House, the German media corporation subsidiary of Bertelsmann; it is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group. It was formed in 1945 by Walter B. Pitkin, Jr., Sidney B. Kramer, and Ian and Betty Ballantine...

 before becoming a free-lance writer. Laskin married law professor Kate O’Neill in 1982; in 1993 they moved from New York to Seattle, Washington, with their three daughters, Emily, Sarah and Alice.

Works

Though Laskin has written on a range of subjects, his recent books have focused on ordinary people swept up in the cataclysm

Cataclysm

The term cataclysm The term cataclysm The term cataclysm (from the Greek kataklysmos, to 'wash down' (kluzein "wash" + kata "down") may refer to:*Deluge (mythology)*a hypothetical Doomsday event*any catastrophic geological phenomenon**volcanic eruption**earthquake...

s of history. Laskin publishes travel articles and book reviews in the New York Times travel section, the Washington Post, and Seattle Metropolitan

Seattle Metropolitan

Seattle Metropolitan, or Seattle Met, is a monthly, local magazine for Seattle, Washington. Its first issue was published in March 2006 and features reporting and feature articles on Seattle events, people, dining and restaurants, popular places and attractions.-Staff:Editor-in-chief Katherine...

.

The Children’s Blizzard

The Children’s Blizzard, published by HarperCollins

HarperCollins

HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...

 in 2004, tells the story of the The Schoolhouse Blizzard, a sudden winter storm that bore down on the Upper Midwest on January 12, 1888 and killed hundreds of settlers, many of them children on their way home from one-room prairie schoolhouses

One-room school

One-room schools were commonplace throughout rural portions of various countries including the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In most rural and small town schools, all of the students met in a single room...

. The book won the 2006 Midwest Booksellers’ Choice Award for Nonfiction, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, the Washington State Book Award

Washington State Book Award

The Washington State Book Awards are presented annually in recognition of notable books written by Washington authors in the previous year.This literary awards program was established in 1967 as the Governor's Writers Awards. The program was based at the Washington State Library in Olympia...

, and it was a Quill Award finalist in history.

The Long Way Home

His most recent book, The Long Way Home: An American Journey from Ellis Island to the Great War (2010), unfolds the lives of a dozen European immigrants who served with the American Expeditionary Force

American Expeditionary Force

The American Expeditionary Forces or AEF were the United States Armed Forces sent to Europe in World War I. During the United States campaigns in World War I the AEF fought in France alongside British and French allied forces in the last year of the war, against Imperial German forces...

 when the nation went to war in 1917. These men – four Italian-Americans, three Jews, two Poles, an Irishman, a Slovak and a Norwegian – fought bravely in the trenches of France and Belgium; three of the them were killed in action; two won the Congressional Medal of Honor. The Long Way Home won the 2011 Washington State Book Award

Washington State Book Award

The Washington State Book Awards are presented annually in recognition of notable books written by Washington authors in the previous year.This literary awards program was established in 1967 as the Governor's Writers Awards. The program was based at the Washington State Library in Olympia...

 for History/General Nonfiction.

Twelve Who Served
Epifanio Affatato. Born Scala Coeli, Italy, January 3, 1895; emigrated with his brother 1911; joined his father and worked as a laborer in Brooklyn, New York, and briefly on railroads ind Des Moins, Iowa; entered the army April 1, 1918; served as a private first class with Company C, 107th Infantry, 27th Division.
Joseph Chmielewski. Born Russian Partition of Poland, 1896; emigrated 1912; joined his brother and worked as a coal miner in South Fork, Pennsylvania; entered the army June 17, 1917; served as private with Company A, 16th Machine Gun Battalion, 6th Division.
Andrew Christofferson. Born Haugesund, Norway, April 14, 1890; emigrated with his sister-in-law and her children 1911; worked as a farm laborer in Larimore, North Dakota, and homesteaded in Chinook, Montana; entered the army June 25, 1918; served as private first class with Company M, 321st Infantry, 81st Wildcat Division.
Maximilian Cieminski. Born Polonia, Wisconsin, October 11, 1891 to immigrants from Kaszubia, Prussion Partition of Poland; worked as a miner and night watchman in his brother-in-law's brewery in Bessemer, Michigan; entered the army November 19, 1917; served as private with Company C, 102nd Infantry 26th "Yankee" Division.
Samuel Dreben. Born Poltava, Ukraine, June 1, 1878; emigrated 1890; enlisted U.S. Infantry 1899 and fouhgt in the Philippines, where he was dubbed "the Fighting Jew"; fought as soldier of fortune in Central America; enlisted February 12, 1918; served as sergeant with Company A, 141st Infantry, 36th Division.
Meyer Epstein. Born Uzda, Russian Pale of Settlement, 1892; emigrated on the Lusitania 1913; worked as hauler and plumber, New York City; entered the army April 27, 1918; served as private with Company H, 58th Infantry, 4th "Ivy" Division.
Samuel Goldberg. Born Lodz, Russian Pale of Settlement, March 19, 1900; emigrated with his mother and siblings 1907; lived in Newark, New Jersey, and later worked in an automobile dealership in Atlanta, Georgia; entered the U.S. Cavalry May 6, 1918; served as private with Company M Troop, 12th Cavalry Regiment.
Matej Kocak. Born Gbely, Slovak section of Austria-Hungary, December 30, 1882; emigrated 1907; enlisted U.S. Marine Corps, October 15, 1907 and reenlisted twice; served in World War I as sergeant with 66th (C) Company, 5th Marine Regiment, 2nd Division.
Tommaso Ottaviano. Born Ciorlano, Italy, May 1896; emigrated with his mother and siblings 1913; worked as a machine operator in Lymansville, Rhode Island; entered army April 27, 1918; served as private with Company I, 310th Infantry, 78th Division.
Antonio Pierro. Born Forenza, Italy, February 15, 1896; emigrated with a cousin 1913; worked as a laborer in Swampscott, Massachusetts; entered the army October 4, 1917; served as private with Battery E, 320th Field Artillery, 82nd "All-American" Division.
Peter Thompson. Born County Antrim, Ireland, September 4, 1895; emigrated 1914; worked in the copper mines in Butte, Montana; entered the army in summer 1917; served as private first class (later promoted to sergeant) with Company E, 363nd Infantry, 91st "Wild West" Division.
Michael Valente. Born Sant'Apollinare, Italy, February 5, 1895; emigrated 1913; worked as an orderly in a mental hospital, Ogdensburg, New York; enlisted in New York National Guard, 1916; served as private with Company D, 107th Infantry, 27th Division.

External links

• David Laskin, author page at HarperCollins
• New York Times article, about the American First World War battlefields.
• David Laskin's Blog
• Interview with Laskin on "New Books in History"