Thomas B. Allen

Thomas B. Allen's writings range from articles for National Geographic Magazine to books on espionage and military history. His latest book is Declassified: 50 Top-Secret Documents That Changed History, published by the National Geographic Society in cooperation with the International Spy Museum. He is also the author of young adult books for National Geographic: Remember Pearl Harbor, Remember Valley Forge, George Washington, Spymaster, and Harriet Tubman, Secret Agent.. The books have received outstanding reviews and won multiple awards, including "Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People" and the New York Public Library's "100 Titles for Reading and Sharing." Remember Pearl Harbor was selected as one of the Notable Books of the Year by the American Library Association.

Allen is also the co-author, with Paul Dickson, of The Bonus Army: An American Epic. The book tells the story of the ill-fated World War I veterans who marched on Washington in 1932 and were driven out by Army troops under command of Gen. Douglas MacArthur. The Bonus Army was published by Walker and Company and was a selection of the History Book Club. A paperback edition was published in 2006, and a documentary based on the book was nationally premiered by PBS in 2006. Film rights to the book are pending.
The book was named as the Spring 2005 History Top Ten by the History Channel and Book Sense, an association of independent U.S. booksellers. The Los Angeles Times called the book “a haunting, compellingly written and marvelously researched book” and “an important contribution to American history.” Taylor Branch, writing in the New York Review of Books, said the book “recalls the subliminal force of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men with gaunt stories of character at the limits of dignity.”

Allen’s is the co-author with Norman Polmar of Spy Book: The Encyclopedia of Espionage, the principal source book for the International Spy Museum, and an encyclopedia of World War II: America at War. 1941-1945.

As a frequent contributor to National Geographic Magazine, he has written on such subjects as Xinjiang China, Mongolia, and Turkey. His World War II articles covered D-Day, the attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Eighth Air Force, and the Battle of Midway. Other articles: the search for the giant squid, the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine, and the search for Cuba's sunken treasure ships. The Geographic articles have been published in the Japanese, Israeli, Greek, and Latin American editions of the Magazine. He also lectures on National Geographic Expeditions, which have taken him to several countries and to such sites of historic events as Pearl Harbor, Havana, Croatia, and the D-Day beaches.
He has written for the Smithsonian, the Washingtonian, the Washington Post Magazine, National Geographic Traveler, Military History Quarterly, Naval History,Military History, and U.S. Naval Proceedings.

Allen was Associate Chief of the National Geographic Society’s Book Service from 1974 until 1981, when he left the Society to freelance as a writer and editor. After leaving the Society he wrote for several Society books, including Field Guide to North American Birds, Inventors and Discoverers, Journey Into China, Into the Unknown, Exploring England and Ireland, Liberty: the Statue and the American Dream, America’s Outdoor Wonders, Photography Then and Now, and We Americans. During his career at the National Geographic Society, Allen worked as an editor and writer on twenty-eight Society books.
Allen was a consultant and on-screen speaker for the Documedia series “Secrets of War” for the History Channel. He has frequently appeared on television as an authority on military and intelligence subjects. He has also produced editorial contributions to web pages of the National Museum of American History, the National Portrait Gallery, the National Geographic Society, and Kodak.

His book Possessed, using the exorcist's diary, reveals in detail the real exorcism that was the basis for the movie “The Exorcist.”
Possessed was adapted for a Showtime movie of the same name. A two-hour History Channel production on exorcism featured Allen as a commentator.
Allen's Shark Attacks is an authoritative analysis of attacks throughout the world.

Prior to his work at the National Geographic Society, Allen was, from 1964 to 1965, Managing Editor, Trade Book Division, Chilton Books. From 1956 to 1963, he was a feature writer on The New York Daily News. Prior to that, he worked as a reporter and columnist for the Bridgeport (Conn.) Herald and served two years in the U.S. Navy.
He and his wife Scottie, a potter and member of Wavery Street Gallery, live in Bethesda, Maryland.