Richard Patrick Critchfield was born on March 23, 1931 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of Ralph James and Anne Louise (Williams) Critchfield.  The family lived at Fessenden, North Dakota at the time and until 1932 when they moved to Fargo, North Dakota.  Richard Critchfield received his B.A. in Far Eastern studies in 1953 from the University of Washington, Seattle.  In 1957 he received his M.S. from Columbia University, and did additional graduate work at universities in Austria and at Northwestern University.

In his career as a journalist, Richard Critchfield has reported from all over the world, concentrating for a large part of his career on Third World countries and the effects of technological change on culture.  He has written for The Christian Science Monitor, The Economist, The New York Times, Reader's Digest, The Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.  His books include Lore and Legend of Nepal; The Long Charade; Political Subversion in the Vietnam War; The Golden Bowl be Broken; Peasant Life in Four Cultures; Shahhat, an Egyptian; Villages; and Those Days:  An American Album.  In 1981, Mr. Critchfield received the prestigious MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship.  He continues to work as a journalist and writer.
 

Richard Critchfield Papers  |  Literary, Music and Theater