Colonel David de Crespigny Smiley, LVO, OBE, MC & Bar (1916 - 2009) was a British special forces and intelligence officer. He fought in the Second World War in Palestine, Iraq, Persia, Syria, Western …
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 thi…
Lawrence George Durrell was a critically hailed and beloved novelist, poet, humorist, and travel writer best known for The Alexandria Quartet novels, which were ranked by the Modern Library as among t…
Ben Macintyre is a writer-at-large for The Times (U.K.) and the bestselling author of The Spy and the Traitor, A Spy Among Friends, Double Cross, Operation Mincemeat, Agent Zigzag, and Rogue Heroes, a…
Tom Reiss is the author of the celebrated international bestseller The Orientalist. His biographical pieces have appeared The New Yorker, The New York Times, and other publications. He lives with his …
Peter Hopkirk was born in Nottingham, the son of Frank Stewart Hopkirk, a prison chaplain, and Mary Perkins. He grew up at Danbury, Essex, notable for the historic palace of the Bishop of Rochester. H…
Robert Erskine Childers DSC, universally known as Erskine Childers, was the author of the influential novel The Riddle of the Sands and an Irish nationalist who smuggled guns to Ireland in his sailing…
Mukhamet Shayakhmetov was born in Kamyshinka village, East Kazakhstan Region. He was drafted by enlistment office of administrative center of Kurshim District in 125th reserve regiment of Semipalatins…
William Somerset Maugham was born in Paris in 1874. He spoke French even before he spoke a word of English, a fact to which some critics attribute the purity of his style.
Commander Donald George Frederick Wyville Macintyre DSO & DSC was a Royal Navy officer during the Second World War and a successful convoy escort commander. As Commander of HMS Hesperus Macintyre was …
Joanna Lillis is a freelance journalist who has been based in Central Asia since 2001 and in Kazakhstan since 2005. Joanna Lillis writes for EurasiaNet.org.
Ben was born in Britain to a mother commissioned into the Royal Navy and a father serving with the United States Armed Forces. Soon after, the family moved to San Diego; whence, as just a toddler, Ben…
Peter Maurice Wright was the principal scientific officer for MI5, the British counter-intelligence agency. His book Spycatcher, written with Paul Greengrass, became an international bestseller with s…
