The official website of Sir Martin Gilbert – 20th Century British Historian and the official biographer of Sir Winston Churchill

Welcome to Sir Martin Gilbert’s website.

The official biographer of Winston Churchill and a leading historian on the Twentieth Century.

A celebration of Sir Martin’s life and his work, his passion, his philosophy, his favourite haunts, his humour and his humanity. Sir Martin is a scholar and an historian who, through his 88 books, has shown there is such a thing as “true history”.
“It is for the historian either to Say what happened or to say that he cannot discover it. To say, “Perhaps it was like this” is to mask a failure to get to the bottom of a problem: and failure in historical research is no crime. It is one of the hazards of the profession.”

  • “What about the Dardanelles!”

    Photo:  Sir Martin’s map of the British plan to defeat Turkey and bring the neutral countries into the war on the allied side, from the First World War Atlas 760 words / 3 minute read The facts behind the spin …. Winston Churchill, known for his leadership duri...

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  • “No biography is ever likely to get closer to its subject than this one.”

    Photo: The new UK edition of Churchill, A Life (available to United States readers on Amazon.co.uk) 570 words / 3 minute read First published in 1991, Martin’s remarkable single-volume biography of the greatest British statesman of the twentieth century is now made av...

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  • Why Israel fights

    Photo: The cover of the booklet 60 Days for 60 Years 400 words / 2 minute read Israel was born.  Within hours, five Arab armies attacked, determined to destroy the new nation in its hour of birth.  Egyptian aircraft bombed Tel Aviv, and more than 100 Jews were killed....

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