<b>William Craig</b> (1929-1997) was an American historian and novelist. Born and raised in Concord, Massachusetts, he interrupted his career as an advertising salesman to appear on the quiz show Tic-Tac-Dough in 1958. With his $42,000 in winnings-a record-breaking amount at the time-Craig enrolled at Columbia University and earned both an undergraduate and a master's degree in history. He published his first book, <i>The Fall of Japan</i>, in 1967. A narrative history of the final weeks of World War II in the Pacific, it reached the top ten on the <i>New York Times</i> bestseller list and was deemed "virtually flawless" by the <i>New York Times</i> Book Review. In order to write <i>Enemy at the Gates</i> (1973), a documentary account of the Battle of Stalingrad, Craig travelled to three continents and interviewed hundreds of military and civilian survivors. A <i>New York Times</i> bestseller, the book inspired a film of the same name starring Jude Law and Joseph Fiennes. In addition to his histories of World War II, Craig wrote two acclaimed espionage thrillers: <i>The Tashkent Crisis</i> (1971) and <i>The Strasbourg Legacy</i> (1975).