Wikipedia

Richard Overy

Richard James OveryFRHistSFBA(born 23 December 1947) is a British historian who has published on the history of World War II andNazi Germany.In 2007, asThe Timeseditor ofComplete History of the World,he chose the 50 key dates of world history.[1]

Richard Overy
FRHistSFBA
Overy lecturing atKing's College Londonin 2015
Born
Richard James Overy

(1947-12-23)23 December 1947(age 76)
NationalityBritish
Alma materGonville and Caius College, Cambridge
OccupationHistorian
Known forStudies onmilitary history,especially the Second World War
Notable credit(s)Why the Allies Won,The Air War: 1939–1945

Life and career

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Overy, after being educated atGonville and Caius College, Cambridge,and becoming aresearch fellowatChurchill College,taught history at Cambridge from 1972 to 1979, as a fellow ofQueens' Collegeand from 1976 as a university assistant lecturer. He moved toKing's College London,where he became professor of modern history in 1994. He was appointed to a professorship at theUniversity of Exeterin 2004.[2]

Overy's work on the Second World War has been praised as "highly effective [in] the ruthless dispelling of myths" (A. J. P. Taylor), "original and important" (The New York Review of Books) and "at the cutting edge" (The Times Literary Supplement).[citation needed]

In 2021, Overy helped to curate objects for displays in theImperial War Museum's Second World War galleries.[3]Some of these objects included flight goggles and a leather helmet once used byBilly Strachan.[3]

Dispute with Timothy Mason

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A museum display created by Overy in theImperial War Museumfeaturing objects once belonging toBilly Strachan.

In the late 1980s, Overy was involved in a historical dispute withTimothy Masonthat mostly played out on the pages ofPast & Presentover the reasons for the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. Mason had contended that a "flight into war" had been imposed onAdolf Hitlerby a structural economic crisis, which confronted Hitler with the choice of making difficult economic decisions or aggression. Overy argued against Mason's thesis by maintaining that though Germany was faced with economic problems in 1939, their extent cannot explain aggression against Poland and the outbreak of war was caused by the Nazi leadership. For Overy, the problem with Mason's thesis was that it rested on assumptions that were not shown by records, information that was passed on to Hitler about Germany's economic problems.[4]

Overy argued that there was a difference between economic pressures induced by the problems of theFour Year Planand economic motives to seize raw materials, industry and foreign reserves of neighbouring states as a way of accelerating the Four Year Plan.[5]Overy asserted that the repressive capacity of the German state as a way of dealing with domestic unhappiness was somewhat downplayed by Mason.[4]Finally, Overy argued that there is considerable evidence that Germany felt that it could master the economic problems of rearmament; as one civil servant put it in January 1940, "we have already mastered so many difficulties in the past, that here too, if one or other raw material became extremely scarce, ways and means will always yet be found to get out of a fix".[6]

Awards and honours

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In media

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Publications

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  • William Morris, Viscount Nuffield(1976),ISBN0-900362-84-7.
  • The Air War: 1939–1945(1980),ISBN1-57488-716-5.
  • The Nazi Economic Recovery, 1932–1938(1982),ISBN0-521-55286-9.
  • Goering: The "Iron Man"(1984),ISBN1-84212-048-4.
  • All Our Working Lives(with Peter Pagnamenta, 1984),ISBN0-563-20117-7.
  • The Origins of The Second World War,edited by Patrick Finney, London: Edward Arnold, Hodder Education Publishers (1997), Third Edition (2008)ISBN0-340-67640-X.
  • Co-written with Timothy Mason: "Debate: Germany, 'Domestic Crisis' and War in 1939", pp. 200–240 inPast and Present,Number 122, February 1989; reprinted as "Debate: Germany, 'Domestic Crisis' and the War in 1939" inThe Origins of The Second World War(1997).
  • The Road to War(with Andrew Wheatcroft, 1989),ISBN0-14-028530-X.
  • The Inter-War Crisis, 1919–1939(1994),ISBN0-582-35379-3.
  • War and Economy in the Third Reich(1994),ISBN0-19-820290-3.
  • Why the Allies Won(1995),ISBN0-224-04172-X.
  • The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Third Reich(1996),ISBN0-14-051330-2.
  • The Times Atlas of the Twentieth Century(ed., 1996),ISBN0-7230-0766-7.
  • Bomber Command, 1939–45(1997),ISBN0-00-472014-8.
  • Russia's War: Blood upon the Snow(1997),ISBN1-57500-051-2.There was a companion10-part television documentary series.
  • The Times History of the 20th Century(1999),ISBN0-00-716637-0.
  • The Battle(2000),ISBN0-14-029419-8(republished asThe Battle of Britain: The Myth and the Reality).
  • Interrogations: The Nazi Elite in Allied Hands, 1945(2001),ISBN0-7139-9350-2(republished asInterrogations: Inside the Minds of the Nazi Elite).
  • Germany: A New Social and Economic History. Vol. 3: Since 1800(ed. withSheilagh Ogilvie,2003),ISBN0-340-65215-2.
  • The Times Complete History of the World(6th ed., 2004),ISBN0-00-718129-9.
  • The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia(2004),ISBN0-7139-9309-X.
  • Collins Atlas of Twentieth Century History(2005),ISBN0-00-720170-2.
  • Imperial War Museum's Second World War Experience Volume 1: Blitzkrieg(2008),ISBN978-1-84442-014-8.
  • Imperial War Museum's Second World War Experience Volume 2: Axis Ascendant(2008),ISBN978-1-84442-008-7.
  • 1939: Countdown to War(2009),ISBN978-960-16-3467-8.
  • The Morbid Age: Britain Between the Wars(2009),ISBN978-0-7139-9563-3.
  • The Bombing War: Europe 1939–1945(2013),ISBN0713995610(later published asThe Bombers and the Bombed: Allied Air War Over Europe, 1940–1945,ISBN978-0-670-02515-2).
  • A History of War in 100 Battles(2014),ISBN9780007452507.
  • RAF: The Birth of the World's First Air Force(2018),ISBN978-0-393-35724-0
  • Blood and Ruins: The Great Imperial War, 1931–1945(2021),ISBN978-0-713-99562-6
  • Why War?(2024),ISBN978-1-324-02174-2

References

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  1. ^Overy, Richard (19 October 2007)."The 50 key dates of world history".The Times.Retrieved2 April2009.
  2. ^"Professor Richard Overy".University of Exeter.Retrieved18 June2022.
  3. ^ab"University of Exeter expert advises on Imperial War Museums' ground-breaking new Second World War and Holocaust exhibition".University of Exeter. 11 October 2021. Archived fromthe originalon 8 May 2023.Retrieved8 May2023.
  4. ^abMason, Tim, & R. J. Overy, "Debate: Germany, 'domestic crisis' and the war in 1939", inThe Origins of The Second World War,edited by Patrick Finney, London, United Kingdom: Edward Arnold, 1997, p. 102
  5. ^Overy, Richard (1999), "Germany, 'Domestic Crisis' and War in 1939", in Christian Leitz (ed.),The Third Reich,Oxford; Blackwell, pp. 117–118
  6. ^Overy (1999), "Germany, 'Domestic Crisis' and War in 1939", inThe Third Reich,p. 108
  7. ^"Samuel Eliot Morison Prize previous winners".Society for Military History.Retrieved25 December2017.
  8. ^Cragg, Claudia (11 November 2010)."Chatting Up A Storm with Claudia Cragg".ChatChat – Claudia Cragg.Retrieved15 March2012.
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