Alistair Horne

Horne became a senior member at St Antony's College, Oxford in 1970 and a fellow of the college in 1978. He was made an honorary fellow in 1988, a position he held until his death. He was knighted in the Queen's Birthday Honours in 2003 for services to Anglo-French relations.

Early life and education Horne was born on 9 November 1925. He was the only son of Sir Allan Horne (died 1944) and Auriol (née Hay-Drummond), niece of the 13th Earl of Kinnoull. He was educated at Eastacre, then Ludgrove School when it was at Cockfosters and described Ludgrove as a place of "humbug, snobbery and rampant, unchecked bullying" which he thought was intended to toughen the boys up. He seems to have hated Stowe, which he escaped from to America during wartime.

As a boy during World War II, Horne was sent to live in the United States. He attended Millbrook School, where he befriended William F. Buckley Jr., who remained a lifelong friend. Horne served in the RAF (1943–44) and later as an officer in the Coldstream Guards (1944–47). He graduated from Jesus College, Cambridge, as a Master of Arts (Cantab) and received the honorary degree of LittD from the University of Cambridge (1993).

Horne was a cricket enthusiast.

Career Horne worked as a foreign correspondent for The Daily Telegraph from 1952 to 1955, stationed in Berlin. In 1953, he was recruited by MI6 and used his job as a journalist as a cover for his spying.

Horne's 1977 book A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954–1962 received the Wolfson Prize in 1978. He described his visit in a Daily Telegraph article.

In 2004, Horne was offered the authorship of former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's official biography but declined due to the daunting amount of work involved and his age and opted instead to write a volume on one year in Kissinger's life (Kissinger: 1973, The Crucial Year, 2009).

Alistair Horne Fellowship He endowed the Alistair Horne Fellowship at St Antony's College to provide financial assistance and college membership to young historians focused on writing a book on modern history. Those receiving the fellowship are able to become senior members of St Antony's.

Selected works Return to Power: A Report on the New Germany. New York: Praeger, 1956. The Land is Bright. 1958. Canada and the Canadians. Toronto: Macmillan, 1961. The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1962. Reissued in 1963. The Fall of Paris: The Siege and the Commune, 1870–1871. London: Macmillan, 1965. Revised edition: Penguin Books 2007. To Lose a Battle: France 1940. London, Macmillan, 1969. Death of a Generation Neuve Chapelle to Verdun and the Somme 1970 The Terrible Year: The Paris Commune, 1871. London, Macmillan, 1971. Small Earthquake in Chile: A Visit to Allende's South America. London: Macmillan, 1972. (Expanded edition, 1990.) A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954–1962. London: Macmillan, 1977. Napoleon, Master of Europe 1805–1807. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1979. The French Army and Politics, 1870–1970. New York: Peter Bedrick Books, 1984. Harold Macmillan. New York: Viking Press, 1988. [Official biography] Volume I: 1894-1956 Volume II: 1957-1986 A Bundle from Britain. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993. (Memoir) Montgomery, David (co-author). Monty: The Lonely Leader, 1944–1945. New York: HarperCollins, 1994. How Far from Austerlitz? Napoleon, 1805–1815. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996. Horne, A. (ed.).Telling Lives: From W.B. Yeats to Bruce Chatwin. London: Papermac, 2000. Seven Ages of Paris. London: Macmillan, 2002. American ed., The Age of Napoleon. New York: Modern Library, 2004. Friend or Foe: An Anglo-Saxon History of France. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004. La Belle France: A Short History. Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. The French Revolution. Carlton Books, 2009. Kissinger: 1973, The Crucial Year. Simon & Schuster, June 2009. But What Do You Actually Do?: A Literary Vagabondage. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2011. Hubris: The Tragedy of War in the Twentieth Century. Harper, 2015.

Honours and awards

Fellow, Royal Society of Literature (1968)