Norman Stone

Norman Stone
Born (1941-03-08) 8 March 1941
Glasgow, Scotland, UK
Residence Oxford, England, UK
Turkey
Education Glasgow Academy
Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge (BA, MA)
Employer University of Cambridge, Fellow Gonville and Caius Coll (1965–71)
Lecturer in Russian history (1968–84)
Fellow Jesus Coll (1971–79)
Fellow Trinity Coll (1979–84)
University of Oxford
Professor of Modern History (1984–97)
Fellow Worcester Coll (1984–97)
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey
Title Professor
Political party Conservative
Spouse(s) Marie Nicole Aubry (2 July 1966–1977)
Christine Margaret Booker, née Verity (11 August 1982–died 15 November 2016)
Children Nicholas, 1966
Sebastian, 1972
Rupert, 1983
Parent(s) Flt Lt Norman Stone, RAF (KIA, 1942)
Mary Robertson, née Pettigrew (d 1991)
Notes

Norman Stone (born 8 March 1941) is a Scottish historian and author. He is currently Professor of European History[2] in the Department of International Relations at Bilkent University, having formerly been a professor at the University of Oxford, lecturer at the University of Cambridge, and adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. He is a board member of the Center for Eurasian Studies (AVIM).[3]

Early life and education

Stone attended Glasgow Academy on a scholarship for the children of deceased servicemen – his father having been killed in World War II[4] – and graduated with First Class Honours in History from Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge (1959–1962). Following his undergraduate degree, Stone did research in Central European history in Vienna and Budapest (1962–65).

Career

Cambridge

Upon completion of his doctorate, Stone was offered a research fellowship by Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he later became an Assistant Lecturer in Russian and German History (1967), and a full Lecturer (1973). In 1971 he transferred from Caius to Jesus College.

Oxford

Stone was subsequently accepted in 1984 as a Professor of Modern History at Oxford University, England.[5] Stone's tenure at Oxford was not without controversy. Petronella Wyatt wrote that Stone "loathed the place as petty and provincial, and for its adherence to the Marxist-determinist view of history."[6] He published a column in the Sunday Times between 1987 and 1992, and was also employed by the BBC, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and the Wall Street Journal.[7] Stone became Margaret Thatcher's foreign policy advisor on Europe,[5] as well as her speech writer.[8]

In May 1994 Stone gave a half-hour Opinions lecture televised on Channel 4 and subsequently published in The Independent. That newspaper later reviewed the lecture as "Little England has never had such great lines: there were the Germans (They want to be good Europeans because it stops them being bad Germans), and the Scandinavians (They only unite around the principle of finding the goody-goody Swedes very irritating)... But as he led us through the corridors of EC lunacy, you saw the point: only through a Lewis Carroll mirror could you meet such grotesques as the Gatt kings: Not so long ago a cow cost more than a student. Nowadays, a non-cow costs even more...On 1 September 1939, the League (of Nations) ignored Hitler's invasion of Poland because it was embarrassing, it moved instead to discuss the standardisation of level-crossings."[9]

Turkey

In 1997, Stone accepted retirement from Oxford and left to teach at the department of International Relations at Bilkent University, Ankara.[10]

In 2005 Stone transferred to Koç University, Istanbul. He later returned to Bilkent University to teach for the 2007-2008 academic year. He guest lectures at Bogazici University, Istanbul. Since moving to Turkey, Stone has been a frequent contributor to Cornucopia, a magazine about the history and culture of Turkey. In 2010, Stone published a book on Turkish history, from the 11th century to the present day, Turkey: A Short History.[11][12]

Views

Stone's reputation was affected by an obituary he wrote in 1983 for the London Review of Books of E. H. Carr,[13] which some felt bordered on the defamatory.[14]

Stone denies that the Armenian Genocide took place. In 2004, he took part in a notable letter exchange on the pages of the Times Literary Supplement, where he strongly criticized Peter Balakian's 2003 book The Burning Tigris, saying that Balakian "should stick to the poems." Stone has praised Guenter Lewy, Bernard Lewis and France-based scholar Gilles Veinstein, all of whom do not believe a genocide took place, either.[15]

In 2009, he argued: "The myth of Winston Churchill is dangerous. Was it a sensible strategy in 1944 and 1945 to bomb Germany to bits? It was very bad realpolitik, whatever its moral purpose."[16]

Writing

Stone's books of greatest note are The Eastern Front 1914-1917 (1975) which won the Wolfson History Prize.[17] He also wrote Hitler (1980), Europe Transformed 1878-1919 (1983), which won the Fontana History of Europe Prize, and World War I: A Short History (2007).[5] He mostly writes about historical events in the past century and specifically is an expert on both World Wars.

Personal life

While in Vienna in the 1960s, Stone met his first wife Nicole, the niece of the finance minister in "Papa Doc" Duvalier's Haiti government. Their son Nick Stone is a thriller writer.[17] His second wife, Christine, was a leading member of the British Helsinki Human Rights Group, a conservative contrarian organization not affiliated with Helsinki Watch.[18]

Stone owns a house in the Galata neighbourhood of Istanbul,[19] and divides his time between Turkey and England.

Published works

  • The Eastern Front, 1914-1917 (1975); ISBN 0-340-12874-7
  • Hitler (1980); ISBN 0-340-24980-3 (Coronet Publ.)
  • Europe Transformed, 1878-1919 (1983), ISBN 0-00-634262-0; 2nd ed. (1999); ISBN 0-631-21507-7
  • Czechoslovakia: Crossroads and Crises, 1918-88 (1989); ISBN 0-333-48507-6
  • The Times Atlas of World History (1989); ISBN 0-7230-0304-1 (ed.)
  • The Other Russia (1990); ISBN 0-571-13574-9 (with Michael Glenny)
  • Turkey in the Russian Mirror, in Ljubica Erickson and Mark Erickson (ed.), Russia: War, Peace and Diplomacy. Essays in Honour of John Erickson, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005, pp. 86–100.
  • Islam in Turkey, in Caroline Y. Robertson-von Trotha (ed.), Europa in der Welt – die Welt in Europa (= Kulturwissenschaft interdisziplinär/Interdisciplinary Studies on Culture and Society, Vol. 1), Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2006, pp. 139–145.; ISBN 978-3-8329-1934-4
  • World War One: A Short History (2007); ISBN 1-84614-013-7 Penguin Press
  • The Atlantic and Its Enemies: A Personal History of the Cold War (2010); ISBN 978-1-84614-275-8 Allen Lane
  • Turkey: A Short History (2010), ISBN 0-500-25175-4; Thames & Hudson
  • World War Two: a Short History (2013), Allen Lane/Basic Books

References

  1. ↑ Prof. Norman Stone profile at Debrett's People of Today. Debrett's Peerage Ltd., 2008. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Michigan: Gale, 2009. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC.(fee via Fairfax County Public Library); accessed 13 September 2009 (Document Number: K2413027212)
  2. ↑ http://history.bilkent.edu.tr/index_files/EuropeanHistoryFaculty.htm
  3. ↑ http://avim.org.tr/en/Menu/Advisory-Board
  4. ↑ Millard, Rosie (5 August 2007). "Britain's a terrible bore, that's why I left". The Times.
  5. 1 2 3 "Graduate Programs Dept., Bilkent University". Archived from the original on 22 March 2005. Retrieved 22 March 2005.
  6. ↑ Wyatt, Petronella (1 December 2012). "I was bullied out of Oxford for being a Tory". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 1 December 2012.
  7. ↑ "Univ. Prof. Dr. Norman Stone: Europe in the Turkish Mirror". Austrian-Turkish Forum of Sciences. 2 February 2003. Archived from the original on 20 February 2011. Retrieved 13 September 2009.
  8. ↑ Griffiths, Lyndsay (13 April 1997). "Britain's Iron Lady is back, but who is she supporting?". Turkish Daily News. Reuters. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007.
  9. ↑ Allison Pearson, "The rising cost of non-cows", The Independent, 8 May 1994
  10. ↑ "Norman Stone: 'There is No Armenian Genocide' - Famous British Historian says he is ready to be prisoned by France" (PDF). Journal of the Turkish Weekly. Turkish Coalition of America. 20 October 2006. Retrieved 13 September 2009. (reproduced)
  11. ↑ Review #1 of Turkey: A Short History
  12. ↑ Review #2 of Turkey: A Short History
  13. ↑ Laqueur, Walter (1987). The Fate of the Revolution. New York City: Scribner. p. 235.
  14. ↑ Grim Eminence, London Review of Books, Vol. 5 No. 1 · 10 January 1983, pages 3-8
  15. ↑ Norman Stone, "A Bungled Case for the Prosecution" Archived 13 November 2013 at the Wayback Machine., The Spectator, 24 April 2004; "Armenia and Turkey", Times Literary Supplement, 15 October 2004; "Armenia in History," Times Literary Supplement, 5 November 2004; World War One: a Short History, London: Penguin Books, 2008, pp. 72-73 and 209; and Turkey: a Short History, London: Thames & Hudson, 2010, pp. 147-148 and 181.
  16. ↑ Dominiczak, Peter (4 September 2009). "US politician puts blame on Churchill for Second World War". London Evening Standard. Archived from the original on 8 September 2009. Retrieved 13 September 2009.
  17. 1 2 "Interview: Norman Stone has both entered history and written it". The Independent. 3 August 2007. Retrieved 13 September 2009.
  18. ↑ "Yanukovich's friends". The Economist. 2 December 2004. Retrieved 2009-09-14. [T]he British Helsinki group ... lost almost all its supporters when it threw its weight behind people like Mr Milosevic. Another leading member, Christine Stone, has also written approvingly of Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe.
  19. ↑ Turkish delights, The Times
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