Monday 10 August 2009

Interview: Antony Beevor Fever!


Few historians can say they served as an officer with the 11th Hussars no matter how many long-dead army officials they have vicariously fulfilled their military fantasies through. But Antony Beevor is no ordinary historian. Educated at Sandhurst, he boldly left the army to pursue a career in writing without any academic training. He speaks to us about the release of his latest battlefield bestseller D-Day: The Battle for Normandy.

Beevor recently caused stir in the press by claiming that D-Day, the celebrated turning point of WWI was ‘close to a war crime’ but he does not stop there. He tells us a shocking statistic that he was “shaken to find” during his research. “More French civilians actually died from British and American bombing and shells than British suffered from the Luftwaffe (German airforce) and V-bombs.”

It is controversial comments like these that popular history is associated with and for this reason journalists love Beevor. He reveals that upon the outbreak of the Iraq War his phone was constantly ringing: “Journalists and politicians were desperately looking for grand comparisons to the past from me,” claims Beevor, “Tony Blair desperately wanted to be the next Churchill. Every politician wants to be the next Churchill, particularly Americans, they love him.”

It seems for the public, Beevor’s writing has been equally compelling. Indeed, he has succeeded where many a grandparent has failed, keeping his audience not only conscious but interested when it comes to the Second World War. Sales of D-Day within its first month have confirmed that this preoccupation with the wartime experience is not on the wane but it wasn’t always like this.

The success of his most famous offering, Stalingrad, was far from obvious. In fact it happened to everyone’s astonishment when history books were failing to sell and historians like David Starkey could kiss their Tudor television dreams goodbye. “We are living in a post-military health-and-safety environment," says Beevor, explaining his surprise success, "People have become intrigued by questions like 'What would I have done? Would I have survived?' It's almost like vicarious suffering I suppose!”

See the full in Seven Magazine

MK