Antony Beevor by John Carey

Award winning historian Antony Beevor to deliver public lecture at Exeter

The Centre for the Study of War, State and Society is delighted to be hosting the award winning writer and historian Antony Beevor on 26 March 2014. He will deliver a public lecture entitled ‘Global Aspects of the Second World War’ at 5pm in Queen’s Lecture Theatre 1, Streatham Campus.

During his visit to the Centre for the Study of War, State and Society, Beevor will be giving a seminar for staff and postgraduate students on writing for a popular audience before delivering the public lecture to be followed by a drinks reception. The lecture is a free event open to all.

Antony Beevor has published four novels, and ten books of non-fiction. His work has appeared in more than thirty foreign editions and sold nearly six million copies. His most recent book, The Second World War, was published in June 2012 and has already been a number one bestseller in Britain and four other countries.

The book is a narrative history of the conflict that uses the most up-to-date scholarship and research to demonstrate that the War was not simply a monolithic clash of state against state, of three Allied powers against the Axis and Japan. In many countries, especially in those occupied by the Germans and the Japanese, people found themselves crushed by rival factions in an international civil war. An essential part of the book is the story of ordinary people, caught up in huge political forces over which they had no control.

Professor Richard Overy from the Centre for the Study of War, State and Society comments, “Antony Beevor is one of Britain’s best-known historians and a bestselling author. His visit to Exeter will be a welcome opportunity for staff and students to engage with popular history writing and an opportunity for the public to hear in person a historian who has become for many of them a household name.”

Amongst his many awards, Beevor was made a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and received the first Longman-History Today Trustees’ Award. Beevor’s other books include The Battle for Spain – The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939, Stalingrad, D-Day – The Battle for Normandy and Paris After the Liberation, 1944-1949.

Date: 5 March 2014

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