Lt. Col. Carlo D'Este died on November 21 of a heart attack at his home in Mashpee, Mass. He was a decorated soldier as well as a military historian and biographer. He was 84.
On his retirement from the army in 1978, he began writing military history, for which he won many prizes and achieved international recognition. Among his seven books, perhaps the best-known is A Genius for War: A Life of General George S. Patton (Harper Perennial). He also wrote biographies of Eisenhower and Churchill as well the World War II books Decision in Normandy, Bitter Victory and Fatal Decision. He was awarded the Andrew Goodpaster Prize and, in 2011, the Pritzker Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing. D'Este was asked to advise President Clinton at the White House before the president's visit to Normandy and Italy, in 1994, on the 50th anniversary of D-Day.