December 14, 1946

Antony Beevor,(December 14, 1946) is a military historian. Among his books are Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943 (1998 ) , Paris After the Liberation, 1944–1949 (1984) and
The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939 (1982). Of course military history is not just a part of a larger story, but needs the odd detail to provide perspective. From Stalingrad we read of scenes where, "the only sign of life would be the odd cat, miaowing in the ruins. ...".  Beevor also writes novels.

Beevor inherits his writing talent, and is married to the granddaughter of Duff Cooper, so he shares in that distinctive British pattern of talent and social standing. And he recently won a prize for his lifetime's work: the Pritzker Military Prize, which carries a grant of $100,000. He already is a "a distinguished Fellow of Britain’s Royal Society of Literature.... He has published four novels and 10 books of non-fiction, the most recent of which is The Second World War .... His book Stalingrad ... won the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Wolfson Prize for History and the Hawthornden Prize for Literature."