Sir Max Hastings

Thereafter, he spent most of his early years as a foreign correspondent for BBC TV and the London Evening Standard, reporting eleven conflicts, notably including Vietnam and the 1982 South Atlantic war, which inspired Battle for the Falklands, the 1983 best-seller he wrote with Simon Jenkins. He was editor, then editor-in-chief, of The Daily Telegraph from 1986-1995, and of the Evening Standard 1996-2002.   He has described his journalistic career in two memoirs, Going to the Wars (2000) and Editor (2002). His history of World War II All Hell Let Loose – titled Inferno in the United States – was published in 2011. His history of World War I Catastrophe: 1914 was published in 2013.

He has received awards both for his books and journalism. BOMBER COMMAND (1979) won the Somerset Maugham Prize. He was Journalist Of The Year and Reporter of the Year in the 1982 British Press Awards, and Editor Of The Year in 1988.

In 2008 he received the Westminster Medal of the RUSI for his lifetime contribution to Military Literature, and in 2009  the Edgar Wallace Trophy of the London Press Club.

In 2012 the Pritzker Military Library of Chicago presented him with its $100,000 Literary Award for lifetime achievement; and he again received the Duke of Westminster’s Medal for Military Literature for All Hell Let Loose.

In 2019 he received the Bronze Medal for the US Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Award for VIETNAM: An Epic History of a Tragic War.

He has presented many TV documentaries. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Honorary Fellow of King’s College, London, he has also received honorary degrees from Leicester and Nottingham universities.   He was President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England 2002-2007, and a Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery 1995-2004.  He was knighted in 2002 for services to journalism.