This week on Q&A, our guest is military historian and author Antony Beevor. He discusses his newly released historical narrative, “The Second World War.” Beevor talks about the origins of the conflict spanning from before Hitler’s invasion of Poland to the aftermath of the war and its global impact on the major powers of the day. He describes Adolf Hitler’s dark and chaotic final days, including his marriage to Eva Braun and the couple’s subsequent suicide. He details the time and circumstances of the start of World War II for each of the participating countries, and he discusses actions taken by U.S. General Douglas MacArthur to suppress information at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal in 1946. He relates how he went about researching and assembling the volume of information he used to write the book. He describes his writing style and the barn he converted to a library in England to physically type out the book.
Antony Beevor is a visiting professor at the School of History, Classics and Archeology, University of London. He has authored or co-authored 13 books. He was a regular officer in the cavalry regiment of the British Army. He is married to writer and biographer Artemis Cooper and has one son and lives near Canterbury England.