The official biographer of Winston Churchill and a leading historian on the Twentieth Century, Sir Martin Gilbert was a scholar and an historian who, though his 88 books, has shown there is such a thing as “true history”
Born in London in 1936, Martin Gilbert was educated at Highgate School, and Magdalen College, Oxford, graduating with First Class Honours. He was a Research Scholar at St Anthony’s College, and became a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford in 1962, and an Honorary Fellow in 1994. After working as a researcher for Randolph Churchill, Gilbert was chosen to take over the writing of the Churchill biography upon Randolph’s death in 1968, writing six of the eight volumes of biography and editing twelve volumes of documents. In addition, Gilbert has written pioneering and classic works on the First and Second World Wars, the Twentieth Century, the Holocaust, and Jewish history.
Gilbert drove every aspect of his books, from finding archives to corresponding with eyewitnesses and participants that gave his work veracity and meaning, to finding and choosing illustrations, drawing maps that mention each place in the text, and compiling the indexes. He traveled widely lecturing and researching, advised political figures and filmmakers, and gave a voice and a name “to those who fought and those who fell.”
Books in order of publication:
| The Appeasers | 1963 |
| The European Powers: 1900 – 1945 | 1965 |
| The Roots of Appeasement | 1967 |
| Winston Churchill | 1967 |
| Churchill (Great Lives Observed) | 1967 |
| Atlas of British History | 1968 |
| American History | 1968 |
| The Atlas of Jewish History | 1969 |
| Atlas of World War I | 1970 |
| Winston S. Churchill: The Challenge of War, 1914-1916 | 1971 |
| The Routledge Atlas of the First World War: The Complete History | 1971 |
| Atlas Of Russian History | 1972 |
| Churchill: A Photographic Portrait | 1974 |
| The Arab-Israeli Conflict Its History in Maps | 1974 |
| Winston S. Churchill: World in Torment, 1916-1922 (Volume IV) | 1975 |
| Winston S. Churchill, Companion Vol. 4 | 1975 |
| Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922-1939 (Volume V) | 1976 |
| The Jews of Russia: Their History in Maps and Photographs | 1976 |
| The Routledge Historical Atlas of Jerusalem | 1977 |
| Exile and Return: The Struggle for a Jewish Homeland | 1978 |
| Final Journey: Holocaust: The Fate Of The Jews In Nazi Europe | 1980 |
| Auschwitz and the Allies: A Devastating Account of How the Allies Responded to the News of Hitler’s Mass Murder | 1981 |
| Winston Churchill, the Wilderness Years | 1981 |
| Atlas of the Holocaust | 1982 |
| Winston S. Churchill, Volume VI: Finest Hour, 1939-1941 | 1983 |
| The Jews of Hope | 1985 |
| Jerusalem: Rebirth Of A City | 1985 |
| Winston S. Churchill: Road to Victory, 1941-1945 | 1986 |
| Winston S. Churchill: Never Despair, 1945–1965 (Volume VIII) | 1988 |
| The Holocaust: The Jewish Tragedy | 1989 |
| The Second World War: A Complete History | 1989 |
| A History of the Twentieth Century: The Concise Edition of the Acclaimed World History | 1989 |
| The Illustrated Atlas Of Jewish Civilization | 1990 |
| Churchill: A Life | 1992 |
| Holocaust Maps & Photographs | 1992 |
| Atlas of the Arab-Israeli Conflict | 1993 |
| The Churchill War Papers: At the Admiralty : September 1939-May 1940 (Churchill War Papers) | 1993 |
| The Routledge Atlas of British History | 1993 |
| In Search of Churchill: A Historian’s Journey | 1994 |
| The Churchill Documents – Volume 15: Never Surrender: May 1940-December 1940 | 1994 |
| D-Day | 1995 |
| The Day the War Ended: May 8, 1945 – Victory in Europe | 1995 |
| The Routledge Atlas of Jewish History | 1995 |
| Jerusalem in the Twentieth Century | 1996 |
| The Boys: The Story of 732 Young Concentration Camp Survivors | 1997 |
| Holocaust Journey: Traveling in Search of the Past | 1997 |
| Israel: A History | 1998 |
| Challenge to Civilization: the History of the 20th Century: 1952-1999 | 1999 |
| Israel: A History Part 1 Of 2 | 1999 |
| Israel: A History Part 2 Of 2 | 1999 |
| Never Again: A History of the Holocaust | 2000 |
| The Straits of War: The Gallipoli Memorial Lectures 1985-2000 | 2000 |
| From the Ends of the Earth: The Jews in the 20th Century | 2001 |
| The Righteous: The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust | 2002 |
| Letters to Auntie Fori: The 5,000-Year History of the Jewish People and Their Faith | 2002 |
| The First World War: A Complete History | 2004 |
| Continue to Pester, Nag and Bite: Churchill’s War Leadership | 2004 |
| Winston Churchill’s War Leadership | 2004 |
| Churchill at War: His “Finest Hour” in Photographs 1940-1945 | 2004 |
| Kristallnacht: Prelude to Destruction | 2005 |
| Churchill and America | 2005 |
| The Somme: Heroism and Horror in the First World War | 2006 |
| The Will of the People: Churchill and Parliamentary Democracy | 2006 |
| Churchill and the Jews: A Lifelong Friendship | 2007 |
| The Routledge Atlas of the Second World War | 2008 |
| Story Of Israel | 2008 |
| In Ishmael’s House: A History of Jews in Muslim Lands | 2010 |
| The Jews of Britain | 2011 |
| The Holocaust: The Human Tragedy | 2014 |
| The Churchill Documents, Volume 17: Testing Times, 1942 | 2014 |
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