Max Hastings

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sir Max Hastings, FRSL (born December 28, 1945) is a British journalist, editor, historian and author. He is the son of Macdonald Hastings, the noted British journalist and war correspondent, and Anne Scott-James, sometime editor of Harper's Bazaar.

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[edit] Life and career

Hastings was educated at Charterhouse School and University College, Oxford, which he left after a year. He became a foreign correspondent and reported from more than sixty countries and eleven wars for BBC television and for the Evening Standard in London. After ten years as editor and then editor-in-chief of The Daily Telegraph he returned to the Evening Standard as editor in 1996 until his retirement in 2001. He received a knighthood in 2002.

When Hastings was with the 2nd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment as part of the British press corps reporting the Falklands War, the troops were ordered to stop but Hastings received no order and walked on, becoming the first man with the Falklands Task Force to arrive in the capital, Port Stanley. He then arranged an interview with the commanding officer of the Argentine forces who had occupied the islands. It was this audacity that won him a double award in 1982: Journalist of the Year and What the Papers Say Reporter of the Year.

He has won many other awards for his journalism, including Editor of the Year in 1988.

He has presented historical documentaries for BBC TV, and is the author of many books, including Bomber Command which earned the Somerset Maugham Award for non-fiction in 1980. Both Overlord and The Battle for the Falklands won the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Prize.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England from 2002-2007. He has two children and lives in Berkshire.

He currently writes a column for the Daily Mail but often contributes articles to other publications such as The Guardian and The New York Review of Books.

The chapter in his 2007 book Nemesis: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 on Australia's role in the last year of the Pacific War was criticised by the Returned and Services League of Australia and one of the historians at the Australian War Memorial for exaggerating discontent in the Australian Army during this period.[1][2]

[edit] Works

[edit] References

  1. ^ Frank Walker (2 December 2007). Mutinous jibe angers veterans. The Age. Retrieved on 2007-12-03.
  2. ^ WW2 diggers outraged. Sky News (2 December 2007). Retrieved on 2007-12-03.

[edit] External links

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Media offices
Preceded by
W. F. Deedes		 Editor of The Daily Telegraph
1986–1995		 Succeeded by
Charles Moore
Preceded by
Stewart Steven		 Editor of the Evening Standard
1996–2002		 Succeeded by
Veronica Wadley
Preceded by
Prunella Scales		 President of the CPRE
2002–2007		 Succeeded by
Bill Bryson
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