NEILLANDS, Robin

PERSONAL: Male.

ADDRESSES: Home—England. Agent—c/o Routledge, 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE, England.

CAREER: Journalist, travel writer, historian, lecturer, and author. Military service: Royal Marines Commandos.

MEMBER: British Guild of Travel Writers (chairman, 1991-93); British Commission for Military History.

AWARDS, HONORS: Canadian Travel Writer of the Year, 1995.

WRITINGS:

The Raiders, Weidenfeld and Nicolson (London, England), 1989.

Wining and Dining in France, Ashford, Buchan and Enright (Southampton, England), 1990.

The Desert Rats: 7th Armoured Division, 1940-1945, Weidenfeld and Nicolson (London, England), 1991.

(With Konrad Bartelski) Learn Downhill Skiing in aWeekend, Knopf (New York, NY), 1992.

Wars of the Roses, Cassell (London, England), 1992.

Walking through Ireland, Little, Brown (London, England), 1993.

(With Roderick De Normann) D-Day, 1944: Voices from Normandy, Motorbooks International (Osceola, WI), 1994.

Wellington and Napoleon: Clash of Arms, 1807-1815, John Murray (London, England), 1994.

The Conquest of the Reich: D-Day to VE Day—ASoldier's Story, New York University Press (New York, NY), 1995.

The Dervish Wars: Gordon and Kitchener in the Sudan, Murray (London, England), 1996.

A Fighting Retreat: The British Empire, 1947-1997, Hodder and Stoughton (London, England), 1996.

In the Combat Zone, New York University Press (New York, NY), 1998.

(With John Murray) The Bomber War: Arthur Harris and the Allied Bomber Offensive 1939-1945, Overlook Press (Woodstock, NY), 2001.

The Bomber War: The Allied Air Offensive againstNazi Germany, Overlook Press (Woodstock, NY), 2001.

The Hundred Years' War, Routledge, (New York, NY), 1990, 2001.

SIDELIGHTS: Robin Neillands is a well-known travel author, historian, lecturer and journalist who currently lives in England. He has a special interest in British history, covering such disparate periods as the Hundred Years' War and the decline of the British Empire in the twentieth century. His military service as a Royal Marines commando has allowed him special insight and interest in the details of war. To this end he has written books on the Desert Rats of World War II, the effects of allied bombing in Germany, and the unique circumstances and challenges faced by special force units such as the Green Berets and the British SAS.

As a travel writer Neillands has written about Ireland, Spain, and France. It is primarily as a historian that he has made his name, however. Neillands has authored two titles dealing with early British history, The Hundred Years' War and The Wars of the Roses. The Hundred Years' War, aimed at general readers, begins with the union of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine and ends with the onset of the Tudor dynasty. Spectator contributor Eric Christiansen observed that Neillands "has a gift of narrative, if not of accuracy," and went on to say that the book serves as "a colourful guide to where things happened, if not always why, or whether." The Wars of the Roses continues the story with an account of the struggle for the English throne between the Lancaster and York factions. Booklist reviewer Roland Green considered The Wars of the Roses a "model of its kind," praising its research, depth, and narrative skill.

Neillands has written extensively and knowledgeably about World War II. D-Day, 1944: Voices from Normandy, cowritten with Roderick De Normann, gathers accounts from a wide array of individuals involved in the military campaign. A reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement appreciated the way the book integrates these accounts into a smooth narrative, and concluded that, as an intimate view of events, the book "is unlikely to be bettered."

In The Conquest of the Reich, from D-Day to VE Day: a Soldier's History Neillands traces the history of the last five months of World War II on the European front. He gathered his material from hundreds of letters, interviews, and eyewitness accounts to give a vivid account of the hard last months of the war. He includes stories of the Battle of the Bulge, the political maneuvering of Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin, plus the liberation of the concentration camps. The Desert Rats: Seventh Armoured Division, 1940-1945 presents the story of the fighting unit that won Britain's first land victory in World War II. John Keegan in the Times Literary Supplement admired the book's honest details and its depiction of the Desert Rats' pride in their division.

Neillands examines the effectiveness and consequences of the allies' use of strategic bombing during World War II in The Bomber War: The Allied Air Offensive against Nazi Germany. Since the end of that war there has been an ongoing controversy about the success and morality of this type of tactic. The author takes the position that it was important to strike at the Nazi's ability to conduct war; nevertheless, the strategy resulted in civilian loss of life and immense cultural destruction. Neillands explores the subject further in The Bomber War: Arthur Harris and the Allied Bomber Controversy, 1939-1945. Sir Arthur Harris led the bomb command during the most difficult days of World War II and held to the idea that an important element of the defeat of Germany was strategic bombing. Churchill praised him as a man who would not falter during a difficult job. Since then, he has been steadily vilified in the press and elsewhere. London Review of Books contributor Patrick Wright expressed disappointment with the book's failure to address controversy, noting that Neillands "lionises" the pilots who conducted the Allied bombing raids. In Booklist, however, Roland Green appreciated the book as "a cogent counterargument to trendy demonizations of the strategic air war and its participants."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Booklist, August, 1993, Roland Green, review of TheWars of the Roses, p. 2034; March 15, 1995, George Cohen, review of The Conquest of the Reich, from D-Day to VE Day: A Soldier's History, p. 1306; July, 2001, Roland Green, review of The Bomber War: The Allied Air Offensive against Nazi Germany, p. 1975.

Contemporary Review, June, 2001, George Evans, review of The Bomber War: Arthur Harris and the Allied Bomber Offensive 1939-1945, p. 374.

History Today, November 1991, Richard Stoneman, review of The Hundred Years' War, p. 58.

Library Journal, July, 2001, Ed Goedeken, review of The Bomber War: The Allied Air Offensive against Nazi Germany, p.108.

London Review of Books, May 26, 1994, John Bayley, review of D-Day, 1944: Voices from Normandy, p. 3.

Medium Aevum, spring, 1992, review of The HundredYears' War, pp. 181-182.

New Statesman, April 28, 1995, Ross Davies, review of The Conquest of the Reich, p. 44; February 26, 2001, Bronwen Maddox, review of The Bomber War: Arthur Harris and the Allied Bomber Offensive 1939-1945, p. 56.

Observer (London, England), March 31, 1991, review of The Desert Rats: 7th Armoured Division 1940-1945, p. 55.

Publishers Weekly, February 27, 1 995, review of TheConquest of the Reich, p. 93.

Reference & Research Book News, May, 1994, review of The Wars of the Roses, p. 6.

Spectator, October 6, 1990, Eric Christiansen, review of The Hundred Years' War, p. 26.

Times Educational Supplement, May 10, 1991, Ralph Griffiths, review of The Hundred Years' War, p. 22.

Times Literary Supplement, May 17, 1991, John Keegan, The Desert Rats: Seventh Armoured Division 1940-1945, p.11; August 20, 1993, review of D-Day, 1944: Voices from Normandy, p. 28; April 12, 2001, Mark Connelly, review of The Bomber War: Arthur Harris and the Allied Bomber Offensive 1939-1945, p. 31.*