7 October 2011
Sir Max Hastings to deliver Dundee Remembrance Lecture
Sir Max Hastings, one of the foremost historians of the Second World War, will visit Dundee on Remembrance Weekend to deliver a lecture challenging orthodox views of the conflict.
The Dundee Remembrance Lecture takes place at the University of Dundee’s Dalhousie Building on Saturday, 12th November. In this lecture, based on ‘All Hell Let Loose: The World at War 1939-1945’, Hastings will describe the course of events in the war in detail as well as focusing on everyday men and women affected by the war in different parts of the globe.
He will examine the impact of war upon hundreds of millions of people around the world - soldiers, sailors and airmen; housewives, farm workers and children - whose experiences varied enormously from campaign to campaign, continent to continent.
‘All Hell Let Loose’ was recently described by Dominic Sandbrook in the Sunday Times as being 'unquestionably the best single-volume history of the war ever written.'
Anna Day, Director of Literary Dundee, one of the organisations responsible for organising the event, said some of Hastings’ insights and judgements will surprise students of the conflict.
'This is what you would expect from someone who has taken Second World War scholarship to new levels,' she said. 'Max Hastings has constantly sought to challenge widely held assumptions about the War and he has done so again.
'We are delighted to be welcoming Sir Max to Dundee, and we are confident he will attract a large audience for what is sure to be a fascinating exploration of the Second World War, one that will turn many people’s pre-conceptions about the conflict on their head.
'It is fitting that he will be delivering this lecture on Remembrance Weekend, as we reflect upon the millions of people who lost their lives between 1939 and 1945, and in other wars.'
As a foreign correspondent, Max Hastings reported from more than sixty countries and covered eleven wars for the BBC and Evening Standard. After ten 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.
The Sunday Times went on to note that 'All Hell let Loose' was 'the book he was born to write: a work of staggering scope and erudition, narrated with supreme fluency and insight. Hastings is a master of the telling fact and he writes with a wonderfully clear, unsentimental eye and has a terrific grasp of the grand sweep and military strategy
'But what makes his book a compelling read are the human stories at the end of this gruesome, chilling but quite magnificent book, you never doubt that the war was worth fighting.'
The event takes place from 6pm on Saturday, 12th November, and is free, and open to all. A drinks reception will follow the lecture, and Max Hastings will also be signing copies of his books afterwards. Please note that overflow theatres may be in operation.
The lecture is held in conjunction with Dundee City Council and was inaugurated in 2007 to commemorate the University's 40th anniversary and its close relationship with the city of Dundee and its people.
Tickets for this lecture are available from the University's online store, Tower Building Reception, by calling 01382 385564 or by emailing events@dundee.ac.uk.
For media enquiries contact:
Grant Hill
Press Officer
University of Dundee
Nethergate, Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384768
E-MAIL: g.hill@dundee.ac.uk
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