Sir Martin Gilbert

Sir Martin Gilbert, the official Winston Churchill biographer, an acclaimed historian, and a best-selling author, was born in London in 1936. He witnessed a city once ravaged by war slowly return to health, and the leadership of Winston Churchill, Britain’s “last lion,” left an indelible impression.

Gilbert is a storyteller and a primary source whose experiences and personal interviews reveal the humanity of people and events long since shrouded by time. Many laud Gilbert’s books and atlases for their meticulous scholarship and his clear and objective presentation of complex events. Exclusively represented by Leading Authorities speakers bureau,Gilbert speaks with grace about the legacy of Winston Churchill, the impact true leadership can make during war-torn times, Churchill’s relationship with America, and the world at large.

Of His Many, Many Books. In 1968, Gilbert was appointed the quintessential Churchill biographer after the death of Churchill’s son Randolph Churchill, who wrote the first two volumes of his father’s biography.

Describing himself as an “archival historian” who makes extensive use of primary sources in his work, Gilbert has written 81 books in total, including six volumes of Churchill’s story, 11 books of Churchill documents, and the demi-epic Churchill: A Life. Gilbert spent 20 years on the six narrative volumes, though he released other works during this time. He writes of Churchill, the First and Second World Wars, the Holocaust, and Jewish history, among other historical subjects.

Gilbert’s histories of the First World War and Second World War are best-selling classics. His aim has always been to write history from the human perspective, never to neglect “the common” man. As Winston Churchill said, “It [the 21st century] is called the century of the common man because in it the common man has suffered most.” He still publishes to this day.

A Man of Honors and Letters. Gilbert was appointed a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, in 1962, at the beginning of his Churchill work. From that time on, he got to know an extraordinary range of people, among them Churchill’s widow Clementine, his four children, some of his closest First- and Second World War advisors, the pilots who taught him to fly before World War One, the soldiers who fought with him in the trenches on the Western Front, his secretaries, his civil servants, the men who brought him secret information about Nazi Germany in the 1930s, and his political allies and opponents in times of peace and times of war.

In 1990, Gilbert was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). In 1995, he was awarded a Knighthood, and, that same year, he retired as a Fellow of Merton College, but was made an Honorary Fellow. Oxford University awarded him a doctorate in 1999, and, since 2002, he has been a Distinguished Fellow of Hillsdale College, Michigan. From 2006–2007, he was a professor in the history department at the University of Western Ontario. In October 2008, he was elected to an Honorary Fellowship at Churchill College. In June 2009, Gilbert was appointed as a member of the British government’s inquiry into the Iraq War, a post he still holds.