Past: History/Biography

The Rt. Hon. Sir Martin Gilbert was a leading historian of the modern world and the official biographer of Winston Churchill.

In his multi-volume biography of Sir Winston Churchill, Sir Martin Gilbert produced one of the most remarkable biographical feats to be published in modern times—an indispensable work of reference that is also a pleasure to read.

Gilbert spent twenty five years researching and writing the six narrative volumes. Each of these is accompanied by two or three volumes of published documents, so that the biography currently runs to 24 volumes (more than 25,000 pages), with a further seven document volumes in the process of compilation.

In addition, Gilbert published influential books including The Roots of Appeasement (1966), Auschwitz and the Allies (1981) and his three volume – A History of the Twentieth Century (1997-9), as well as nine pioneering historical atlases, most recently, Atlas of the 2^nd World War (2010).

Among the awards that Gilbert received, a Doctorate of Literature from Oxford University, and Honorary Fellowship of Churchill College, University of Cambridge.

In 1995 Gilbert was knighted for “services to British history and international relations”.