Alistair Horne (1925–2017)
Author of A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962
About the Author
Alistair Allan Horne was born in London, England on November 9, 1925. He enlisted in the Royal Air Force, but failed to qualify for pilot training because of poor eyesight. He later joined the Coldstream Guards, attaining the rank of captain. When the war ended, he was transferred to the show more Intelligence Corps and stationed in Cairo where he monitored Soviet activity in the Balkans. He received a master's degree in English in 1949 from Jesus College, Cambridge. Before becoming an author, he was a foreign correspondent for The Daily Telegraph and a spy for MI6, Britain's foreign intelligence service. His books included The Fall of Paris: The Siege and the Commune, 1870-71; To Lose a Battle: France 1940; Small Earthquake in Chile: A Visit to Allende's South America; The French Army and Politics, 1870-1970; Seven Ages of Paris; The Age of Napoleon; La Belle France: A Short History; and Kissinger: 1973, The Crucial Year. The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916 won the Hawthornden Prize and A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962 won the Wolfson Prize. He wrote several memoirs including A Bundle from Britain and But What Do You Actually Do?: A Literary Vagabondage. He was knighted in 2003. He died on May 25, 2017 at the age of 91. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Works by Alistair Horne
Associated Works
What If? The World's Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been (1999) — Contributor; Contributor — 1,773 copies
MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History — Summer 1992 (1992) — Author "How The Other Side Lived" — 19 copies
MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History — Autumn 1995 (1995) — Author "In Defense of Montgomery" — 19 copies
MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History — Spring 1998 (1998) — Author "The Overreachers" — 14 copies
MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History — Summer 1998 (1998) — Author "The Bloody Week" — 13 copies
MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History — Summer 1999 (1999) — Author "Paris for the Price of a Mass" — 11 copies
MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History — Summer 2001 (2001) — Author "The Balloons of Paris" — 10 copies
MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History — Winter 2000 (1999) — Author "Greatest Leader: Winston S. Churchill" and "The Battle That Made France" — 9 copies
MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History — Spring 2005 (2005) — Author "In Review: The Franco-Prussian War: The German Conquest of France in 1870-1871" — 8 copies
MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History — Summer 2007 (2007) — Author "In Review: Time at War" — 8 copies
MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History — Summer 2004 (2004) — Author "Antwerp: Allies' Missed Opportunity" — 5 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Horne, Sir Alistair Allan
- Birthdate
- 1925-11-09
- Date of death
- 2017-05-25
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- UK
- Birthplace
- London, England, UK
- Place of death
- Turville, Buckinghamshire, England, UK
- Places of residence
- England, UK
USA - Education
- Millbrook School
Jesus College, University of Cambridge (MA|1949 - English) - Occupations
- foreign correspondent
historian - Relationships
- Buckley, William F., Jr. (friend)
- Organizations
- Royal Air Force, 1943-1944
Coldstream Guards, 1944-1947
The Daily Telegraph - Awards and honors
- Commander, Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (1992)
Fellow, Royal Society of Literature (1968)
Chevalier, Ordre de la Légion d'honneur (1993)
Knight Bachelor (2002)
Fellow, St Antony's College, Oxford University
Hawthornden Prize (1963) (show all 7)
Wolfson Prize (1978) - Short biography
- Sir Alistair Horne was born in London in 1925, and has spent much of his life abroad, including periods at schools in the United States and Switzerland. He served with the R.C.A.F. in Canada in 1943 and ended his war service with the rank of Captain in the Coldstream Guards attached to MI5 in the Middle East. He then went up to Jesus College, Cambridge, where he read English Literature and played international ice-hockey. After leaving Cambridge, Alistair Horne concentrated on writing: he spent three years in Germany as correspondent for the Daily Telegraph and speaks fluent French and German. His books include Back into Power; Small Earthquake in Chile; The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916 ; and The Seven Ages of Paris. A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954–62 won both the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Prize and the Wolfson History Award in 1978, and he is the official biographer of Harold Macmillan. In 1970, he founded a research Fellowship for young historians at St Antony’s College, Oxford. In 1992 he was awarded the CBE; in 1993 he received the French Légion d’Honneur for his work on French history and a Litt.D. from Cambridge University.
http://www.panmacmillan.com/author/al...
Members
Reviews
Very readable account of battles to take key city of Verdun in WW 1. Madness of war is clear. French vs. Germans in 1916. Horrible details given of stalemated campaign which pretty well destroyed the French morale. It could never be a world power after this.
Overall, a book with a lot of great information that wasn't unenjoyable. But Horne is a stuffy writer at times, and maybe even a bit of a stuffy historian. In the onslaught of historical facts, there doesn't seem to be any moment to stop and reflect or parse through the information more deeply. Granted, that may not have been within the scope of the book for him, and that's fine. As a reader, I prefer history with more spring in its interpretations.
The final chapters felt like something of a slog, and, as the book's focus comes closer to modern times, a bias becomes clear with his telling of history. For example, it's clear that de Gaulle represents greatness in all ways to Horne. It's also clear that France's occupation of Algeria was only an annoying "burden" (447) to France—conspicuously avoiding the horrors of colonialism and the massacres carried out by the French colonizers themselves. There's nothing wrong with Horne having an opinion about de Gaulle and French Algeria, but the book was too slanted by the end.… (more)
The final chapters felt like something of a slog, and, as the book's focus comes closer to modern times, a bias becomes clear with his telling of history. For example, it's clear that de Gaulle represents greatness in all ways to Horne. It's also clear that France's occupation of Algeria was only an annoying "burden" (447) to France—conspicuously avoiding the horrors of colonialism and the massacres carried out by the French colonizers themselves. There's nothing wrong with Horne having an opinion about de Gaulle and French Algeria, but the book was too slanted by the end.… (more)
It's great, but the format of the book makes it hard for me to read. Excellent backdrop to the beginning of the war and then a meticulously detailed account of the conflict. Even handed.
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Statistics
- Works
- 28
- Also by
- 15
- Members
- 5,198
- Popularity
- #4,789
- Rating
- 3.8
- Reviews
- 80
- ISBNs
- 165
- Languages
- 10
- Favorited
- 11
The author depicts the flow of battle with expertise, and illustrates the effects it had on both sides. He dives into the nightmare of the new weaponry introduced at Verdun, like flamethrowers or phosgene gas - and you can almost feel the panic as your own heart starts racing imagining what it must have been like to confront these terrors.
I have only two criticisms of the book. Horne will sometimes reference a "well known" figure without giving any context. If you don't happen to know what person or their backstory, it's up to you to figure it out. He will also regularly cite quotes in French (less often German) without any translation, so you'll need to have at least a basic understanding of the language if you want to understand these, or run them through a translator.
Regardless, this stands as one of the best books I've read on WWI and I highly recommend it.… (more)