‘Catastrophe’ – Sir Max Hastings to deliver Saturday Evening Lecture on 26th April

Published On Mon 21 Apr 2014 by Grant Hill

Sir Max Hastings, one of the world’s most esteemed war historians, will recount the events surrounding the outbreak of hostilities in 1914 when he delivers a sold-out Saturday Evening Lecture at the University of Dundee.

He will read from and discuss the contents of his most recent book, ‘Catastrophe’, a meticulously researched portrait of Europe’s descent into World War I and the titanic battlefield clashes which followed, at the Dalhousie Building on Saturday, 26th April.

Author of 24 books, many of them about war, Sir Max left University College, Oxford to become a journalist and reported on 11 conflicts, notably Vietnam, the Falklands, and the Arab-Israeli War. After 10 years as editor, and then editor-in-chief, of the Daily Telegraph, he became editor of the Evening Standard in 1996. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he was knighted in 2002.

He has won many awards for his journalism. Among his best-selling books ‘Bomber Command’ won the Somerset Maugham Prize, and both ‘Overlord’ and ‘Battle for the Falklands’ won the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Prize.

Talking about ‘Catastrophe’, which controversially challenges the view of some modern historians that British participation in the struggle was unnecessary and that the war was futile, Sir Max said, “I hope to offer some answers, at least, to the huge question ‘what happened to Europe in 1914?’

“It seems absurd to imagine that if Britain had stayed neutral, a Germany victorious on the continent would then have allowed the Empire to have continued to dominate the world’s financial system and its oceans.  

‘Popular sentiment draws an absurdly stark contrast between the Second World War as supposedly our ‘good’ war, and the First as our ‘bad’ one, what I call the ‘poets’ view’. Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon brilliantly depicted the nightmare of the trench experience, but never explained how Britain could have got out of it, other than by conceding victory to Germany. German 1914-18 war aims were not much different from those of Hitler, except that there was no plan for Jewish genocide.”

This year is the 90th anniversary of SELS, Scotland's oldest continuous free public lecture series which continues to attract thousands of people each year eager to hear from prestigious, world-class speakers.

The tradition of holding public lectures dates right back to the founding of University College Dundee in 1881. The early professors and staff were keen to establish and strengthen ties with the people of Dundee and Tayside holding evening classes, giving public lectures and undertaking welfare projects.

The public lecture programmes reflected research interests of College staff as well as topics that were of a more general nature. The evening lectures as we know them today can be traced back to a series of lectures held jointly with the Dundee Naturalists Society beginning with a lecture by Principal John Yule Mackay on Primitive Man in October 1924.

‘Catastrophe’ takes place at the Dalhousie Building on Saturday, 26th April at 6pm. A book signing and drinks reception will follow the talk. This is the Graduates Council Annual Discovery Lecture for 2014, an event held in conjunction with Dundee City Council, and takes place as part of the First World War Centenary commemorative programme.

All tickets have been taken up for the event, and attendees are advised that overflow theatres will be in use with the Main Lecture Theatre filled on a first come, first seated basis.

For media enquiries contact:
Grant Hill
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University of Dundee
Nethergate, Dundee, DD1 4HN
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