Historian, writer Manchester dies

LOS ANGELES – William Manchester, the eminent popular historian and biographer best known for his detail-rich and highly readable books chronicling the life of Winston Churchill and the death of John F. Kennedy, died Tuesday at his home in Middletown, Conn. He was 82.

Manchester, professor emeritus of history at Wesleyan University in Middletown, had suffered two strokes in the late ‘90s.

In a literary career that spanned five decades, the one-time Baltimore Sun foreign correspondent wrote 18 books, including popular histories on the Middle Ages and mid-20th century America; biographies of H.L. Mencken, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the Rockefellers and others; four novels, and a World War II memoir – as a twice-wounded Marine Corps veteran of Okinawa.