Antony Beevor
Author of Stalingrad
About the Author
British historian Antony Beevor was born on December 14, 1946. He was educated at Winchester College and Sandhurst and studied under the well-known World War Two historian, John Keegan. Beevor was an officer with the 11th Hussars for five years before becoming a writer. His works have received show more awards including the Runciman Prize, the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Wolfson Prize for History, and the Hawthornden Prize for Literature. The French government made him a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1997, and in 2008 the president of Estonia awarded him the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana. In 1999 Beevor was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He received the 2014 Pritzker Military Museum and Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing. In 2015 he made The New Zealand Best Seller List with his title Ardennes 1944: Hitler's Last Gamble. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Works by Antony Beevor
The Battle of Arnhem: The Deadliest Airborne Operation of World War II (2018) — Author — 699 copies, 11 reviews
Associated Works
A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary (1954) — Introduction, some editions — 2,096 copies, 71 reviews
Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy (2011) — Preface, some editions — 1,030 copies, 28 reviews
What Ifs? of American History : Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been (2003) — Contributor — 537 copies, 7 reviews
MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History — Autumn 1998 (1998) — Author "Stalingrad" — 14 copies
MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History — Summer 2002 (2002) — Author "Assault on the Reichstag" — 6 copies
MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History — Spring 2015 (2015) — Translator and editor "Experience: This Terrible Truth" — 3 copies
A German Life: A Play by Christopher Hampton – Drawn from the Life and Testimony of Brunhilde Pomsel [programme] (2019) — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Beevor, Antony
- Birthdate
- 1946-12-14
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Winchester College
Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst - Occupations
- army officer
historian
professor
novelist - Organizations
- British Army (11 Hussars)
- Awards and honors
- Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Chevalier)
Royal Society of Literature (Fellow) - Relationships
- Cooper, Artemis (wife)
Beevor, Kinta (mother)
Norwich, John Julius (father-in-law)
Waterfield, Lina (grandmother)
Duff Gordon, Lucie (great-great-grandmother)
Austin, Sarah (great-great-great-grandmother) (show all 7)
Ross, Janet (great-great-aunt) - Short biography
- Antony Beevor was born in London, England, to a literary family. His mother Kinta Beevor was an author and the daughter, granddaughter, great-niece, and great-granddaughter of memoirists, journalists, and translators. His father Jack Beevor was a successful lawyer. Antony was educated at Winchester College and the British Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, where he studied under John Keegan. After an early career in the army, he became a full-time writer. He has published four novels, beginning with Violent Brink (1975) and more than 10 nonfiction works, many of them focused on World War II. They include Stalingrad (1998), which won the first Samuel Johnson Prize, the Wolfson Prize for History, and the Hawthornden Prize for Literature; Crete: The Battle and the Resistance (1991), which won a Runciman Prize; and Paris After the Liberation, 1944-1949 (1994), written with his wife Artemis Cooper. His book Berlin: The Downfall 1945, (2002), a bestseller, received the first Longman-History Today Trustees’ Award.and was accompanied by a BBC program on his research into the subject. With his Russian research assistant, Lyubov Vinogradova, he edited the wartime papers of Vasily Grossman, published as A Writer at War: Vasily Grossman with the Red Army, 1941-1945.
- Nationality
- UK
- Birthplace
- London, Middlesex, England, UK
- Places of residence
- London, Middlesex, England, UK
- Map Location
- UK
Members
Reviews
The 1944 German offensive in the Ardennes forest “had brought the terrifying brutality of the eastern front to the west,” concludes Antony Beevor in this book. And “terrifying brutality” is an accurate description indeed of this month-long battle. Civilians were slaughtered in their scores — by both sides, though on the German side it was intentional. Prisoners of war were killed by both sides — though, to be fair, that began with the SS massacre of captured American soldiers show more early on. The everyday brutality of the Ardennes battle is shown in many individual episodes Beevor recounts. He describes an Allied soldier having hanged a German soldier’s corpse from a tree and lit a fire under it. Why do this? To defrost the frozen body so that he could remove the soldier’s boots. (German boots were apparently more water-resistant than the American ones.)
There are moments when it seems that the Germans might have had a chance. At one point hundreds of Luftwaffe planes take off — long after Allied commanders had written the German air force off as a fighting force. Elite SS Panzer divisions fight ferociously even in the final days of the battle. But in reality, there was never a moment, not even at the beginning of the offensive, when the Germans stood a chance of turning the tide of war. In fact, the main effect of Hitler’s decision to launch a last-ditch offensive in the west was to ease the Soviet offensive launched in January 1945, as so few troops were left to defend Germany’s eastern borders.
This is a detailed, authoritative account that works on all levels — from the high command down to individual soldiers and civilians. Probably the last book I will ever have to read about what Americans call “the battle of the bulge”. show less
There are moments when it seems that the Germans might have had a chance. At one point hundreds of Luftwaffe planes take off — long after Allied commanders had written the German air force off as a fighting force. Elite SS Panzer divisions fight ferociously even in the final days of the battle. But in reality, there was never a moment, not even at the beginning of the offensive, when the Germans stood a chance of turning the tide of war. In fact, the main effect of Hitler’s decision to launch a last-ditch offensive in the west was to ease the Soviet offensive launched in January 1945, as so few troops were left to defend Germany’s eastern borders.
This is a detailed, authoritative account that works on all levels — from the high command down to individual soldiers and civilians. Probably the last book I will ever have to read about what Americans call “the battle of the bulge”. show less
excellent book. It is no "Saving Private Ryan" and that is a good thing. The great strength of this book is willingness of the author to write about topics that ensure that there are no heroes in war. He discusses at length the things that soldiers and generals did wrong. He uncovers the fact that Normandy was sacrificed so that France could be saved. He has documentation about the horrendous number of civilian causalities suffered by the French in Normandy. He deals with the issue of show more barbarity towards POW's on both sides and documents as many incidents in which Allied soldiers killed POW's as he does for German soldiers. He also discusses the issue of combat fatigue and how unprepared the American soldiers were for combat. He hails the development of a humane way to deal with psychiatric patients that was eventually employed by the American Army. Militarily he maintains that the naval fire was of more help than was aerial bombing at first. He is critical of leadership and equipment when he needs to be.
this book is not the story that is Cornelius Ryan's "Longest Day" but I have no doubt that this is going to be the definative work about the Normandy Invasion for this generation. There is also no doubt that this book will be controversial. show less
this book is not the story that is Cornelius Ryan's "Longest Day" but I have no doubt that this is going to be the definative work about the Normandy Invasion for this generation. There is also no doubt that this book will be controversial. show less
This book is one of the best accounts of the Soviet front out there. It is fascinating (although I may be biased, I do love accounts focusing on the actual people on the ground). It is fantastically edited in an attempt to tell a complete story. The raw quotes hit deep and hard, they are exquisite. I highly recommend it, if you won't read anything else about the USSR during this time period, at least read this.
This is the book that introduced me to Vasily Grossman, and I am now determined to show more read all his novels. His writing style is gripping, but so are his observations. I enjoyed how he focused on the specific everyday person. It is refreshing, compared to many other war time books that focus on the commandants and officers or war strategies.
On a personal note, this book changed my outlook on life in general and the USSR. It was a gripping read but heavy, I got through it slowly, I annotated, this was all I could talk about for months. I genuinely believe this is one of those books I will carry with me wherever I move and reread often. show less
This is the book that introduced me to Vasily Grossman, and I am now determined to show more read all his novels. His writing style is gripping, but so are his observations. I enjoyed how he focused on the specific everyday person. It is refreshing, compared to many other war time books that focus on the commandants and officers or war strategies.
On a personal note, this book changed my outlook on life in general and the USSR. It was a gripping read but heavy, I got through it slowly, I annotated, this was all I could talk about for months. I genuinely believe this is one of those books I will carry with me wherever I move and reread often. show less
Beevor manages a masterpiece of military history in Stalingrad. He covers this battle completely, from Operation Barbarossa, to the siege and the kessel, and the final disintegration of the Nazi 6th Army into Soviet prison camps and post-war ignominy. The narrative moves easily and naturally between Stalin and Hitler in their supreme HQs, staring at maps and radiotelegraphy reports, to the titanic clash of Panzer divisions, and air fleets, and above all, the dire struggle for survival face show more by the ordinary soldier. Stalingrad was a meatgrinder, fought by nations that did not give a whit for human life. Deaths on both sides were over one million; exactly how high we'll never know, given the paucity of records. The city was flattened, entire armies annihilated, and Beevors recounts again and again the last letters of men going to their death, and human cost of that battle.
What I did not expect was to feel sympathy for the Nazis. Soviet soldiers died horribly; without sufficient weapons or supplies to stop Panzers, executed under the arbitrary discipline of the commissars, but whether it was truth or effective propaganda, most of they knew they were selling their lives dearly in defense of the beloved rodina. Nazis soldiers died for Hitler's pride, in foolish hope that they would be rescued from encirclement. They died starving, frozen, crawling with lice, from disease and from Soviet mistreatment in prisoner-of-war camps. Even genocidal war criminals deserve better.
Stalingrad was the turning point of World War 2, the battle that broke the Wehrmacht, and proved Hitler incompetent. This is the single best book about that battle imaginable. show less
What I did not expect was to feel sympathy for the Nazis. Soviet soldiers died horribly; without sufficient weapons or supplies to stop Panzers, executed under the arbitrary discipline of the commissars, but whether it was truth or effective propaganda, most of they knew they were selling their lives dearly in defense of the beloved rodina. Nazis soldiers died for Hitler's pride, in foolish hope that they would be rescued from encirclement. They died starving, frozen, crawling with lice, from disease and from Soviet mistreatment in prisoner-of-war camps. Even genocidal war criminals deserve better.
Stalingrad was the turning point of World War 2, the battle that broke the Wehrmacht, and proved Hitler incompetent. This is the single best book about that battle imaginable. show less
Lists
Awards
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 41
- Also by
- 8
- Members
- 19,654
- Popularity
- #1,106
- Rating
- 4.1
- Reviews
- 337
- ISBNs
- 634
- Languages
- 27
- Favorited
- 37
