Sir Martin Gilbert | |
|---|---|
 Gilbert being awarded an honorary doctorate atBen-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba, Israel, 2011 | |
| Born | Martin John Gilbert (1936-10-25)25 October 1936 London, United Kingdom |
| Died | 3 February 2015(2015-02-03) (aged 78) London, United Kingdom |
| Education | Highgate School |
| Alma mater | Magdalen College, Oxford St Antony's College, Oxford |
| Occupation(s) | Historian, author |
| Known for | Winston Churchill's official biography Twentieth century history Jewish history |
Sir Martin John GilbertCBE FRSL (25 October 1936 – 3 February 2015)[1][2] was a British historian and honorary Fellow ofMerton College, Oxford. He was the author of 88 books, including works onWinston Churchill, the 20th century, andJewish history includingthe Holocaust.He was a member of theChilcot Inquiry into Britain's role in theIraq War.
Martin Gilbert was born in London, the first child of Peter Gilbert, a north London jeweller, and his wife, Miriam. The original family name was Goldberg.[3][4] All four of his grandparents were Jewish and had been born in thePale of Settlement in theRussian Empire.[3][5][6] Nine months after the outbreak of theSecond World War, he was evacuated to Canada as part of theBritish efforts to safeguard children. Vivid memories of thetransatlantic crossing fromLiverpool toQuebec sparked his curiosity about the war in later years.[1]
After the war, Gilbert attendedHighgate School, where he was taught history by theBalkan expertAlan Palmer, and politics by T. N. Fox.[5] He described himself as being interested in "Jewish things" from a young age, noting that at school he "once or twice got in trouble for my Zionistic activities."[6] He then completed two years ofNational Service in the Intelligence Corps before going on to study atMagdalen College at theUniversity of Oxford. Gilbert graduated in 1960 with a Bachelor of Arts degree withfirst-class honours in modern history.[4] One of his tutors at Oxford wasA. J. P. Taylor. After his graduation, Gilbert undertook postgraduate research atSt Antony's College, Oxford.
After two years of postgraduate work, Gilbert was approached byRandolph Churchill to assist his work on a biography of his father,Sir Winston Churchill. That same year, 1962, Gilbert was made aFellow ofMerton College, Oxford, and became a part of a circle of academics that includedC.S. Lewis andJ.R.R. Tolkien. He spent the next few years combining his own research projects in Oxford with being part of Randolph's research team inSuffolk, who were working on the first two volumes of the Churchill biography. When Randolph died in 1968, Gilbert was commissioned to take over the task, completing the remaining six main volumes of the biography.[7]
Gilbert spent the next 20 years on the Churchill project, publishing a number of other books throughout the time. Each main volume of the biography is accompanied by two or three volumes of documents initially called Companions, and so the biography currently runs to 28 volumes (over 30,000 pages), with another 3 document volumes still planned.Michael Foot, reviewing a volume of Gilbert's biography of Churchill in theNew Statesman in 1971, praised his meticulous scholarship and wrote: "Whoever made the decision to make Martin Gilbert Churchill's biographer deserves a vote of thanks from the nation. Nothing less would suffice."[8][9]
In the 1960s, Gilbert compiled a number of historicalatlases. His other major works include a single-volume history onthe Holocaust, as well as the single-volume historiesFirst World War andSecond World War. He also wrote a three-volume series calledA History of the Twentieth Century. Gilbert described himself as an "archival historian" who made extensive use ofprimary sources in his work.[7] Interviewed by theBBC on the subject of Holocaust research in 2005, Gilbert said he believed that the "tireless gathering of facts will ultimately consign Holocaust deniers to history."[10]
By the 1980s Gilbert's academic attention had also turned towards theRefusenik movement in theSoviet Union.[11] Gilbert authoredJews of Hope: The Plight of Soviet Jewry Today (1984) andShcharansky: Hero of Our Time (1986), and he presented on behalf of theSoviet Jewry Movement in a variety of contexts, ranging from large forums such as formal representation before theUnited Nations Commission on Human Rights[12] to smaller forums such as an educational slideshow for the general public on behalf of the Soviet Jewry Information Centre.[13]
In 1995, Gilbert retired as a Fellow of Merton College but was made an Honorary Fellow. In 1999[14] he was awarded aDoctor of Lettersdegree by the University of Oxford "for the totality of his published work".[15]In 2000 he received the Guardian of Zion Award from the Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies at Bar-Ilan University. From 2002, he was a Distinguished Fellow ofHillsdale College,Michigan, and between 2006 and 2007 he was a Professor in the History department at theUniversity of Western Ontario. In October 2008, he was elected to an Honorary Fellowship atChurchill College.[citation needed]
Gilbert was noted for his endorsement ofBat Ye'or and herEurabia theory, providing a cover comment for her 2005 book,[16] and has stated that the theory "is 100 percent accurate".[17] One of Gilbert's last books,In Ishmael's House: A History of the Jews in Muslim Lands cited Ye'or with approval several times.[18]
Gilbert was appointed in June 2009 as a member of the British government'sinquiry into the Iraq War (headed bySir John Chilcot). His appointment to this inquiry was criticised in parliament byWilliam Hague,Clare Short, andGeorge Galloway on the basis of scepticism over his neutrality, Gilbert having written in 2004 thatGeorge W. Bush andTony Blair may in the future be esteemed to the same degree as Churchill andFranklin D. Roosevelt.[19][20] In an article forThe Independent on Sunday published in November 2009,Oliver Miles, the former British ambassador toLibya, objected to the presence of Gilbert andSir Lawrence Freedman on the committee partly because of their Jewish background and Gilbert'sZionist sympathies.[21] In a later interview, Gilbert saw Miles's attack as being motivated byantisemitism.[22]
Many laud Gilbert's books and atlases for their meticulous scholarship and his clear and objective presentation of complex events.[23] His book on World War I was described as a majestic, single-volume work incorporating all major fronts—domestic, diplomatic, military—for "a stunning achievement of research and storytelling."[24]Catholic sources describe him as a "fair-minded, conscientious collector of facts."[25]
Gilbert's portrayal of Churchill's supportive attitudes to Jews (in his bookChurchill and the Jews) has been criticised, for example, byPiers Brendon[26] and Michael J. Cohen.[27] Furthermore,Tom Segev writes that although Gilbert's bookThe Story of Israel is written with "encyclopaedic clarity," it suffers from the absence of figures from Arab sources.[28]
In 1990, Gilbert was made a Commander of theOrder of the British Empire (CBE). In 1995, he was awarded aknighthood "for services to British history and international relations".[29] In 2003 Gilbert was awarded the Dr. Leopold Lucas Prize by theUniversity of Tübingen.[30][page needed] In 2012, he won theDan David Prize for his contribution to "History/Biography".[31] The Sir Martin Gilbert Library atHighgate School, where he was a pupil, was opened on 6 May 2014 by former Prime MinisterGordon Brown.[32] "I know he helpedLady Thatcher,John Major and Tony Blair, but he also helped me a great deal with his insights into history", said Brown. "I know he advised Harold Wilson even before them, but at every point Martin was available and he wanted to believe that the best outcomes were possible. A genuine humanitarian, someone whose writing of history taught him we could always do better in the future if we are able to learn the lessons of history."[33]
Gilbert received honorary degrees from several universities. These include:[34]
| Location | Date | School | Degree |
|---|---|---|---|
 Missouri | 1981 | Westminster College | Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.) |
 Israel | 1989 | Bar-Ilan University | Doctorate[35] |
 Ohio | 1992 | Hebrew Union College | Doctorate |
 England | 1992 | University of Buckingham | Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.)[36] |
| England | 1999 | University of Oxford | Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.) |
 District of Columbia | 2000 | George Washington University | Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.)[37] |
 Pennsylvania | 2000 | Gratz College | Doctorate |
 New Jersey | 2002 | Seton Hall University | Doctorate |
 Ontario | 4 June 2003 | University of Western Ontario | Doctor of Laws (LL.D)[38] |
| England | 2004 | University of Leicester | Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.)[39] |
| Israel | 2004 | Hebrew University of Jerusalem | Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)[40] |
| Israel | 2011 | Ben-Gurion University of the Negev | Doctorate |
 |
Gilbert was a Fellow of the following institutions:[34]
| Location | Date | Institution | Appointment |
|---|---|---|---|
 United Kingdom | 1977 | Royal Society of Literature | Fellowship (FRSL)[41] |
| England | 1994 | Merton College, Oxford | Honorary Fellowship |
 Wales | 1997 | University of Wales, Lampeter | Honorary Fellowship |
 California | 2002 | University of California, San Diego | Distinguished Visiting Fellow |
 Michigan | 2002 | Hillsdale College | Distinguished Fellow |
| England | 2008 | Churchill College, Cambridge | Honorary Fellowship |
|
Gilbert was the target of a serious attempt by theState Protection Authority ofHungary to recruit him as an agent in the early 1960s. He initially responded warmly, and agreed to go on a Hungarian government-funded trip toBudapest in September 1961, and expressed views about Britain which seemed designed to impress his Hungarian hosts (mixed with some untruths about his background). The Hungarians attempted to intercept the many letters he sent back home during the trip, and were able to work out that Gilbert was lying about being a Communist. When invited to a further meeting in Paris, Gilbert did not show up and eventually when his intended handler defected to the West, the Hungarians gave up. Gilbert never explained the incident himself. Writing about it in 2015, Hungarian historian Krisztián Ungváry noted that Gilbert must have realised what was going on, and may have been used by the British intelligence services to plant a double agent.[42]
In 1963, he married Helen Constance Robinson, with whom he had a daughter. He had two sons with his second wife, Susan Sacher, whom he married in 1974. From 2005, he was married to theHolocaust historian Esther Gilbert, née Goldberg.[4] Gilbert described himself as a proud practising Jew and aZionist.[43]
In March 2012, while on a trip toJerusalem, Gilbert developed aheart arrhythmia from which he never recovered.[44] He died in London on 3 February 2015, aged 78.[45] Gilbert asked to be buried in Israel. A Memorial Tribute attended byGordon Brown and Randolph Churchill (that is, Randolph Leonard Spencer-Churchill, the great-grandson of Winston Churchill) was organised on 24 November 2015 in the Western Marble Arch Synagogue, London.[46]
Gilbert's death was announced on 4 February 2015 by Sir John Chilcot. Giving evidence before theForeign Affairs Select Committee about delays in the publication of the report of theIraq Inquiry, Chilcot reported that Gilbert had died the previous night following a long illness.[47][48][49]
Volumes one and two were written by Churchill's sonRandolph Churchill, who also edited the two companions to volume one. Gilbert's first work as official biographer was to supervise the posthumous publication of the three companions to volume two, but these were published in Randolph Churchill's name, and indeed, Randolph had already compiled most of the material in his lifetime. In 2008, Gilbert announced that the job of publishing the remaining companion volumes had been taken over by the Hillsdale Press, and the first of these appeared in 2014. The Hillsdale Press had already reprinted the complete biography in eight volumes and the sixteen published companion volumes, as a series titled "The Churchill Documents", so that the volume of 2014 became the seventeenth instalment of this series. Gilbert was incapacitated shortly after its publication, so that subsequent volumes were posthumously published by Gilbert's former research assistantLarry Arnn, with Gilbert credited as co-author.
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