Tom Clancy (born 1947) writes novels of adventure and espionage in the international military-industrial complex that have earned him enormous popularity in the 1980s as a creator of the "techno-thriller" genre.

Tom Clancy was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1947, the son of a mail carrier and a credit employee. After graduating Loyola College in Baltimore in 1969, Clancy married Wanda Thomas, an insurance agency manager, and became an insurance agent in Baltimore, and later in Hartford, Connecticut. In 1973, he joined the O.F. Bowen Agency in Owings, Maryland, becoming an owner there in 1980. His poor eyesight made him ineligible for a military career, but Clancy maintained an interest in the military and researched various aspects of the armed forces and military technology. The ideas for several novels and main characters he wrote in the 1980s were formed in the late 1970s while he was conducting research. During this time, Clancy...