Stephen Budiansky Books In Order

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Stephen Budiansky is an American writer, biographer, historian and journalist.

Born in 1957, he is an author and Guggenheim Fellow known for his many books about everything from military history to science, nature, the natural world, and intellectual and creative lives.

He has written several biographies and works on military and intelligence history. This includes Battle of Wits, a single volume history on World War II cryptology. He also wrote Code Warriors, a book on the NSA in the Cold War. This was cited by the Economist as one of the best books to ‘understand intelligence and espionage’. He has written books about domesticated animals and how they relate to humans such as The Truth About Dogs and The Nature of Horses.

In 2011, Stephen was given a Guggenheim Fellowship in the Creative arts as a writer of general nonfiction, which allowed him to finish his biography of the American composer Charles Ives.

He has written freelance on many occasion and his pieces have been featured in publications such as Harper’s, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine and Op-Ed page, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Economist, Science, Men’s Journal, Smithsonian, Military History Quarterly, Civil War Times, The Field, Town & Country, American History, American Heritage, New Scientist, and Science 80.

Budiansky has also had his papers published in academic journals such as Naval Institute Proceedings, Intelligence & National Security, Cryptologia, American Music, and Nature, on topics such as land use, cryptologic history, and music.

The author grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts. He attended Lexington High School and then Yale University, where he graduated with his bachelor of science degree in chemistry summa cum laude in 1978. He would then graduate the next year from Harvard with a master of science degree in applied mathematics.

He worked as a magazine editor for Environmental Science & Technology magazine from 1979 to 1982. He was also a radio producer of Man and Molecules, a syndicated weekly science interview program, at the American Chemical Society in Washington, D.C.

From 1982-1985, he served as a Washington correspondent and then editor of Nature, a scientific journal. There he covered Congress, science policy, government agencies, and huge stories on topics such as biotechnology, biological weapons, genetic engineering patents, and scientific fraud.

In 1985, he was picked for a Congressional Fellowship at the US Congress’s Office of Technology Assessment. There he co-wrote a study on the use of advanced precision-guided conventional weapons as a way to reduce NATO’s reliance on nuclear deterrence.

In 1986, he became part of the staff of U.S. News & World Report. There he worked for the next dozen years in different writing and editing positions. These included as a foreign editor, a national security correspondent, a foreign editor, and a deputy editor. He was the editor of World War II magazine in 2007-2008, where he worked to redesign and re-conceive the magazine and bring in well-known historians and writers to contribute.

Stephen is married to Martha Polkey. They have been married since 1982 and have two adult children. His father is Bernard Budiansky, who worked as a professor of structural mechanics at Harvard University who worked in applied mechanics and materials science.

He has been a full-time author and independent scholar since 1998, focusing on military and intelligence history and intellectual biography. His works have been praised by publications and reviewers. The New York Times picked Journey to the Edge of Reason as one of its ‘New York Times Critics’ Top Books of 2021’. It was also picked as a Top Ten Biography of 2021 by Booklist and a Best Science Book of 2021 by Kirkus Reviews.

Budiansky was selected as the Caroline D. Bain Scholar in Residence at Smith College. There he did research for his book The Bloody Shirt, which involved researching the papers of Civil war general Adelbert Ames.

He received the Army Historical Foundation’s Distinguished Writing Award in 2004, has had his books twice short-listed for the now Royal Society Prize for Science Books, and was invited in 2010 to give the Fourth Schorreck Memorial Lecture in Cryptologic History at the NSA.

He is a former Washington Editor of Nature, a scientific journal. He is also a regular book reviewer for the Wall Street Journal. He resides on a small farm located in northern Virginia.

Her Majesty’s Spymaster: Elizabeth I, Sir Francis Walsingham, and the Birth of Modern Espionage is a 2006 book by Stephen Budiansky. If you enjoy interesting nonfiction, check this book out.

Sir Francis Walsingham was the principal secretary to Queen Elizabeth I. In truth, this Puritan was the first spymaster of England. He was not only a loyal civil servant but also worked behind the scenes to defeat Mary Queen of Scots and Spain and France.

Through the course of his career, he would win the trust of William Cecil and the Earl of Leicester before launching his secret campaigns against the enemies of the queen. He specialized in covert operations and specialized in exploiting double agents, spreading disinformation, and deciphering codes, pioneering techniques that are still used in espionage today. Check out this book for yourself to follow along with every word and find out more.

Code Warriors: NSA’s Codebreakers and the Secret Intelligence War Against the Soviet Union is a 2016 book by Stephen Budiansky. Interested in the history of the NSA? This book is for you.

The NSA came out of the code-breaking programs of the second world war that helped achieve Allied victory. In the post-war years, America found a new foe in the Soviet Union and the NSA was more important than ever, going on to play a vital role in major world events.

In this book, cryptology expert Budiansky tells the story of the origins of the NSA, from World War II to the Berlin Wall coming down. He shows challenges that cryptanalysts are up against, how they broke some of the 20th century’s toughest codes, and provides crucial insight to the NSA as it was then and today. An origin story for the ages, check out Code Warriors by Stephen Budiansky to find out more.