Five top historians of war

Max Hastings is an author, journalist and broadcaster whose work has appeared in every British national newspaper.

His newest book is Operation Biting: The 1942 Parachute Assault to Capture Hitler's Radar.

At the Waterstones blog he tagged five of his favorite historians of war, including:

Michael Howard

I guess it is sort of inevitable that almost all the writers whom I cite here should be, or have been, big figures in my own life, because I have taken care to get to know the historians whom I admire. Michael Howard was a towering figure in the lives of all of us who write about war, the wisest person I have ever met. Born in 1922, he had the most unusual distinction of having served as a wartime soldier, winning an MC at Salerno in 1943, then going on to a glittering academic career for which he was made a Companion of Honour and member of the Order of Merit. His early big book, published in 1961, The Franco-Prussian War still reads well. But I also recommend his 2003 short, succinct study of World War I, packed with terse, illuminating insights; also the several published collections of his lectures and essays. I am indebted to Michael for innumerable words of wisdom about conflict in general and twentieth-century warfare in particular, often deliberately designed to provoke. For instance, a year or two before his death in 2019 he suddenly said to me: ‘Such a pity we won the Falklands War!’ I asked, of course: why so? ‘Because just as Britain was getting over the trauma of Suez and starting to come to terms with our much diminished place in the world, along came victory in the South Atlantic, to revive all the old nationalistic delusions about our importance, which eventually led to Brexit.’ I loved and revered Howard, and hear his voice in everything he wrote.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue