Stephen Budiansky is an American writer, historian, and biographer. He is also the author of a number of scholarly publications about the history of cryptography, military and intelligence history, and music.
Budiansky joined the staff of the science journal Nature as Washington correspondent and later served as its Washington editor. In 1985–86 he was a Congressional Fellow at the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment, where he co-authored a study of advanced conventional weapons technologies as a means for reducing NATO's reliance on nuclear deterrence. In 1986 Budiansky joined the staff of U.S. News & World Report, where he worked for twelve years in a variety of writing and editing positions, covering science and national security issues. He ultimately served as the magazine's deputy editor, the No. 3 editorial position. Since 1998 Budiansky has been a full-time author and free-lance contributor to publications including the Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Economist. His writing has focused on three main areas: intellectual biography; military history; and the evolution and behavior of domesticated animals. From 2007 to 2008 he was the editor of World War II magazine, where he oversaw a complete redesign and brought in well-known writers and historians to contribute to the publication. He is also a member of the editorial board of Cryptologia, the scholarly journal of codes and codebreaking. His 2005 article in the Washington Post on the poor quality of school-music repertoire generated considerable attention and controversy among music educators and composers. He subsequently collaborated with Tim Foley, the 26th director of the United States Marine Band, on a scholarly article further exploring the problem and recommending solutions.
Personal
Stephen Budiansky lives on a small farm in Loudoun County, Virginia. He is married to Martha Polkey; they have a daughter and a son. He is a son of Bernard Budiansky, who was a professor of mechanical engineering at Harvard University.
Oliver Wendell Holmes: A Life in War, Law, and Ideas.
Code Warriors: NSA's Codebreakers and the Secret Intelligence War Against the Soviet Union.
Mad Music: Charles Ives, the Nostalgic Rebel. University Press of New England.
Blackett's War: The Men Who Defeated the Nazi U-Boats and Brought Science to the Art of Warfare. Knopf., detailing the contributions to the war effort made by Patrick Blackett and his scientific colleagues in the early 1940s.
Perilous Fight: America's Intrepid War with Britain on the High Seas, 1812–1815. Knopf.
