A native of Memphis, Sides attended PDS Memphis[2] and Memphis University School, and graduated from Yale with a BA in history. In 2017, he was awarded an honorary doctorate in humane letters from Colorado College.[5] Sides lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with his wife Anne Goodwin Sides, a journalist and former NPR editor.
Ghost Soldiers (Doubleday, 2001), a World War II narrative about the rescue of Bataan Death March survivors, has sold slightly over a million copies worldwide and has been translated into a dozen foreign languages. Erik Larson, author of The Devil in the White City, praised Ghost Soldiers as a "Great Escape for the Pacific Theater," and Esquire called it "the greatest World War II story never told." The book was the subject of documentaries on PBS and The History Channel, and was partially the basis for the 2005 Miramax film, The Great Raid (along with William Breuer's The Great Raid on Cabanatuan). Ghost Soldiers won the 2002 PEN USA Award for non-fiction and the Discover Award from Barnes & Noble. The book's success led Sides to create The Ghost Soldiers Endowment Fund, a non-profit foundation dedicated to preserving the memory of the sacrifices made by Bataan and Corregidor veterans by funding relevant archives, museums, and memorials.
Blood and Thunder (Doubleday, 2006) focuses on the life and times of controversial frontiersman Kit Carson, and his role in the conquest of the American West. A critic for the Los Angeles Times described Blood and Thunder as "stunning, haunting, and lyrical," while The Washington Post called it "riveting, monumental...authoritative and masterfully told." Blood and Thunder was named one of the 10 Best Books of 2006 by Time magazine, and was selected as that year's best history title by the History Book Club and the Western Writers of America. Blood and Thunder was the subject of a major documentary on the PBS program American Experience and is currently under development for the screen.
Hellhound on His Trail
Hellhound on His Trail (Doubleday 2010) is about the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and the largest manhunt in American history to capture James Earl Ray, who pleaded guilty in 1969 and served the rest of his life in prison. Sides, who is a native of Memphis, is the first historian to make use of a new digital archive in that city, called the B. Venson Hughes Collection, which contains more than 20,000 documents and photos, many of them rare or never before published. Sides' research forms much of the basis for PBS's documentary "Roads to Memphis", which originally aired May 3, 2010, on the award-winning program, American Experience.
Hellhound on His Trail reached #6 on The New York Times Best Seller list and was a finalist for the 2011 Edgar Awards as the year’s best non-fiction mystery. Janet Maslin of The New York Times called the book "spellbinding...bold, dynamic, unusually vivid," while a reviewer in The New York Times Book Review suggested that Hellhound "may be the first book on King that owes less to Taylor Branch than Robert Ludlum." Time magazine said Hellhound "unfolds like a mystery—one read not for the ending but for all the missteps and near misses along the way." Critic Laura Miller, writing on Salon.com, described Hellhound as a "meticulous yet driving account that is in essence a true-crime story and a splendid specimen of the genre." David Garrow, author of a Pulitzer-winning biography of King, wrote in The Washington Post that Hellhound was "a carefully constructed true-crime narrative" and "a memorable and persuasive portrait" that "makes a valuable contribution to the historical record."
Black Label Media will produce and direct a film adaption, with a spring 2018 target for start of production. The script will be adapted by Scott Cooper who will also direct the film.[10]
In the Kingdom of Ice
In the Kingdom of Ice (2014, Doubleday) recounts the tragic true story of the first official American attempt on the North Pole, the voyage of the USS Jeannette led by Navy captain George DeLong in 1879. Key historical figures in the book include James Gordon Bennett, Jr., owner of the New York Herald newspaper and financier, and August Heinrich Petermann, a German cartographer whose theory helped spawn the polar expedition.[11]
The book has been translated into French, German, Chinese, Polish, and Russian, among other languages. Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down, called In the Kingdom of Ice "the most dramatic polar mission you’ve never heard of. Once you start, you won’t stop." S.C. Gwynne, author of Empire of the Summer Moon called it "an Arctic thriller . . . an authentic narrative masterpiece." Efforts to locate the wreck of the USS Jeannette have been led by the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, for which Sides has served as a consultant. In the Kingdom of Ice is reportedly being developed for the small screen by Emmy Award winning screenwriter Kirk Ellis (John Adams).
On Desperate Ground
On Desperate Ground: The Marines at The Reservoir, the Korean War's Greatest Battle, was published on October 2, 2018. It is a multifaceted retelling of the Battle of Chosin Reservoir through the experiences of marines, commanders, pilots, Korean citizens and the Chinese. It also acts an indictment of the overweening hubris of General of the Army, Douglas MacArthur. Through MacArthur's self-proclaimed expertise on the "Oriental mind" and what Sides referred to as MacArthur's "solemn regard for his own mind", MacArthur was thoroughly convinced of American victory; instead, and while completely ignoring the advice of leaders on the ground, MacArthur sent American troops into what could only result into a massacre.[12] Historian Douglas Brinkley called the book "a heart-pounding, fiercely written . . . one of the finest battle books ever." A reviewer for Bloomberg, calling the book " superb," wrote that On Desperate Ground "should be required reading for negotiators on both sides of the DMZ." The Washington Post named On Desperate Ground one of the ten best books of 2018, and the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation named it the year's best non-fiction book.
Considerable parts of the narrative follow aviator Jesse L. Brown, who is also the subject of the 2022 film Devotion.
The Wide Wide Sea
The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook was published in 2024.
Why Moths Hate Thomas Edison and Other Urgent Inquiries into the Odd Nature of Nature: The Best of Outside Magazine's "The Wild File" New York: Norton, 2001. ISBN0-393-32150-9OCLC45715852
On Desperate Ground: The Marines at The Reservoir, the Korean War's Greatest Battle. Doubleday. 2018. ISBN978-0385541152. OCLC1099506789.
The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook. Doubleday. 2024. ISBN978-0385544764. OCLC1416012934.
^N. Scott Momaday (October 29, 2006). "Cowboys and Indians". The New York Times. "Blood and Thunder" is a full-blown history, and Sides does every part of it justice... By telling this story, Sides fills a conspicuous void in the history of the American West.
^Tobar, Hector (August 1, 2014). "Review: 'Kingdom of Ice' uncovers a polar adventure frozen in time". Los Angeles Times. Sides' book is a masterful work of history and storytelling, and it rewards patient readers with scenes of human strength and frailty they will long remember.
^Gary Krist (August 1, 2014). "Book review: "In the Kingdom of Ice," polar voyage of USS Jeannette, by Hampton Sides". The Washington Post. Thanks to Sides's copious mining of primary and first-person sources — including memoirs, official Navy documents, and De Long's journals and private correspondence — readers get to experience at close range the Jeannette crew's trek across the melting ice, this "sorry-looking set" in ignominious retreat from a nonexistent warm-water sea.
