Geoffrey Albert Wheatcroft (born 23 December 1945) is a British journalist, author, and historian. [1]
Wheatcroft is the son of Stephen Frederick Wheatcroft (1921–2016), OBE, and his first wife, Joyce (née Reed). He was born in London and raised at Hampstead. His father was an economist, serving as a governor of the London School of Economics, and an expert on civil aviation, serving as Commercial Planning manager for British Airways from 1946 to 1953, before working for various airlines as an independent consultant. [2] [3] [4]
Wheatcroft was educated at University College School, London, then New College, Oxford, where he read modern history. [5]
Wheatcroft started work in publishing in 1968, working for Hamish Hamilton (1968–70), Michael Joseph (1971–1973), and Cassell & Co (1974–1975). In 1975, he became the assistant editor of The Spectator , moving to the post of literary editor, which he occupied from 1977 to 1981. During the 1981–1984 period, he worked as a reporter in South Africa before becoming editor of the Londoner's Diary gossip column in the London Evening Standard in 1985–1986. He was a Sunday Telegraph columnist in 1987–1991 and freelance 1993–1996, feature writer on the Daily Express , 1996–1997, and has since written for The Guardian , The Times Literary Supplement , The New York Review of Books , The New Republic , the Boston Globe , The Atlantic , The American Conservative , and other publications on both sides of the Atlantic.
His book The Controversy of Zion won a 1996 National Jewish Book Award. [6] [7] His 2021 biography of Winston Churchill [8] was described by conservative historian Andrew Roberts in The Spectator as a "character assassination"; [9] in The New York Times , Peter Baker wrote: "They are, of course, taking different views of the same man. Roberts's book was described in these pages as the best single-volume biography of Churchill yet written. Wheatcroft's could be the best single-volume indictment of Churchill yet written." [10]
In 1990, Wheatcroft married the fashion designer and painter Sally Muir, [11] the daughter of Frank Muir. They live in Combe Down, Bath, Somerset, and have two children, Abigail and Gabriel. [12] [13]
A History of the English-Speaking Peoples is a four-volume history of Britain and its former colonies and possessions throughout the world, written by Winston Churchill, covering the period from Caesar's invasions of Britain to the end of the Second Boer War (1902). It was started in 1937 and finally published 1956–1958, delayed several times by war and his work on other texts. The volumes have been abridged into a single-volume, concise edition.
William Raymond Manchester was an American author, biographer, and historian. He was the author of 18 books which have been translated into over 20 languages. He was awarded the National Humanities Medal and the Abraham Lincoln Literary Award.
Frank Herbert Muir was an English comedy writer, radio and television personality, and raconteur. His writing and performing partnership with Denis Norden endured for most of their careers. Together they wrote BBC Radio's Take It from Here for over 10 years, and then appeared on BBC radio quizzes My Word! and My Music for another 35. Muir became Assistant Head of Light Entertainment at the BBC in the 1960s, and was then London Weekend Television's founding Head of Entertainment. His many writing credits include editorship of The Oxford Book of Humorous Prose, as well as the What-a-Mess books that were later turned into an animated TV series.
Winston Spencer Churchill, generally known as Winston Churchill, was an English Conservative politician and a grandson of British prime minister Winston Churchill. During the period of his prominence as a public figure, he was normally referred to as Winston Churchill, in order to distinguish him from his grandfather. His father Randolph Churchill was also an MP.
Paul Bede Johnson was an English journalist, popular historian, speechwriter and author. Although associated with the political left in his early career, he became a popular conservative historian.
Andrew Roberts, Baron Roberts of Belgravia,, is an English popular historian, journalist and member of the House of Lords. He is the Roger and Martha Mertz Visiting Research Fellow in the Hoover Institution in Stanford University and a Lehrman Institute Distinguished Lecturer in the New York Historical Society. He was a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery from 2013 to 2021.
Sir Martin John Gilbert was a British historian and honorary Fellow of Merton College, Oxford. He was the author of 88 books, including works on Winston Churchill, the 20th century, and Jewish history including the Holocaust. He was a member of the Chilcot Inquiry into Britain's role in the Iraq War.
Hal Gibson Pateshall Colebatch was a West Australian author, historian, poet, lecturer, journalist, editor, and lawyer.
Christopher Merlin Vyvyan Holland is a British biographer and editor. He is the only grandchild of Oscar Wilde, whose life he has researched and written about extensively.
Richard M. Langworth CBE is an author based in Moultonborough, New Hampshire, United States, and Eleuthera, Bahamas, who specialises in automotive history and Winston Churchill. He was editor of The Packard Cormorant from 1975 to 2001 and is a Trustee of the Packard Motorcar Foundation in Detroit, Michigan. His works have won awards from the Antique Automobile Club of America, Society of Automotive Historians, Old Cars Weekly, Packard Club and Graphic Arts Association of New Hampshire.
Christopher Catherwood, is a British author based in Cambridge, England and, often, in Richmond, Virginia. He has taught for the Institute of Continuing Education based a few miles away in Madingley and has taught for many years for the School of Continuing Education at the University of Richmond. He has been associated each summer with the University of Richmond's History Department, where he is its annual summer Writer in Residence, and where most of his recent books have been written.
Don David Guttenplan is an American writer who serves as editor of The Nation. A former London correspondent of the magazine, he wrote The Holocaust on Trial, a book about the Irving v Penguin Books and Lipstadt libel case while based in the UK's capital.
The Sunday Dispatch was a prominent British newspaper, published between 27 September 1801 and 18 June 1961. It was ultimately discontinued due to its merger with the Sunday Express.
Winston Churchill, in addition to his careers as a soldier and politician, was a prolific writer under the variant of his full name 'Winston S. Churchill'. After being commissioned into the 4th Queen's Own Hussars in 1895, Churchill gained permission to observe the Cuban War of Independence, and sent war reports to The Daily Graphic. He continued his war journalism in British India, at the Siege of Malakand, then in the Sudan during the Mahdist War and in southern Africa during the Second Boer War.
Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years is an eight-part 1981 drama serial based on Winston Churchill's years in enforced exile from political position during the 1920s and 1930s. It was made by Southern Television on a budget of £3¼ million and originally broadcast on ITV on Sunday nights at 10 pm. It was written and directed by Ferdinand Fairfax, with historian Martin Gilbert as co-writer. Churchill was played by Robert Hardy, who earned a BAFTA nomination for Best Actor and went on to play him in several other productions.
Anne Sebba is a British biographer, lecturer and journalist. She is the author of nine non-fiction books for adults, two biographies for children, and several introductions to reprinted classics.
Michael Shelden is an American biographer and teacher, notable for his authorized biography of George Orwell, his history of Cyril Connolly's Horizon magazine, his controversial biography of Graham Greene, and his study of the last years of Mark Twain, Man in White. In March 2013 his Young Titan: The Making of Winston Churchill was published. In 2016 his biography of Herman Melville, Melville in Love, was published by Ecco/HarperCollins.
Candice Sue Millard is an American writer and journalist. She is a former writer and editor for National Geographic and the author of four books: The River of Doubt, a history of the Roosevelt–Rondon Scientific Expedition of the Amazon rainforest in 1913–14; Destiny of the Republic, about the assassination of James A. Garfield; Hero of the Empire, about Winston Churchill's activities during the Boer War; and River of the Gods, about the search for the source of the Nile River.
Geoffrey Francis Andrew Best FBA was an English historian known for his studies of warfare and works about Winston Churchill.
Jonathan Schneer is an American historian of modern Britain whose work ranges over labor, political, social, cultural, and diplomatic subjects. He is an emeritus professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology. In addition to writing numerous scholarly and popular books, he has written for such publications as The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Foreign Policy. His work has been translated into German, Chinese, and Turkish. He has appeared often on American, Canadian, and British media. He has lectured in six countries.