Roland Huntford | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1927 (age 97–98) |
| Occupation | Biographer, author |
| Alma mater | University of Cape Town Imperial College London |
Roland Huntford (néHorwitch;[1] born 1927) is an author, principally of biographies of Polar explorers.
Huntford, the son of Lithuanian parents (originally "Horowitz") living in South Africa, has stated that he was educated at theUniversity of Cape Town andImperial College London.[1] In an interview with the glaciologistCharles Swithinbank, he claimed "his father was an Army officer and his mother was from Russia";Ranulph Fiennes, however, observed that, during his own research onCaptain Scott – in the course of which he presented reviews of, and himself assessed, Huntford's biographical work – he was unable to corroborate any of Huntford's own claims regarding his background, which presented his father as "some English colonial gentleman given to romantic travels in pre-Soviet Russia".[1]
Huntford's author biography, used in publicity for his books, states that he worked for theUnited Nations inGeneva, then as a journalist forThe Spectator.[1] He was formerly Scandinavian correspondent ofThe Observer, also acting as their winter sports correspondent. He was the 1986–1987 Alistair Horne Fellow atSt Antony's College, Oxford.
He has written biographies ofRobert Falcon Scott,Ernest Shackleton andNobel Peace Prize winnerFridtjof Nansen; these biographies have been the subject of controversy.[1]
Huntford put forth the point of view thatRoald Amundsen's success in reaching the South Pole was abetted by much superior planning, whereas errors by Scott (notably including the reliance on horses instead of sled dogs) ultimately resulted in the death of Scott and his companions.[2]
Huntford's other books includeSea of Darkness,The Sayings of Henrik Ibsen andTwo Planks and a Passion: The dramatic history of skiing. His polemicalThe New Totalitarians is a critique of socialism in Sweden, written from the point of view of western political culture. His main thesis was that the Swedish social democratic party, like the "new totalitarians" inAldous Huxley'sBrave New World, relied less upon the violence and intimidation of the old totalitarians than upon sly persuasion and soft manipulation in order to achieve its goals.[3]
He was elected aFellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2001.[4]
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