Simon Reeve (UK television presenter)

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Simon Reeve on the border in the unrecognised nation Nagorno-Karabakh
Simon Reeve on the border in the unrecognised nation Nagorno-Karabakh

Simon Reeve (born 1972) is a British author and TV presenter. Based in London, he specialises in international terrorism, conflict resolution, and making travel documentaries in little-known areas of the world. Reeve is the New York Times bestselling author of The New Jackals (1998), One Day in September (2000) and Tropic of Capricorn (2007). He has received a One World Broadcasting Trust Award for an "outstanding contribution to greater world understanding."[1]

Contents

[edit] Biography

Reeve was born and raised in west London. He has said his childhood holidays were usually in Dorset, England, and that he rarely went abroad until he started work.[2] After leaving school Reeve took a series of jobs, including working in a supermarket, a jewelry shop, and a charity shop, before he started researching and writing in his spare time while working as a postboy at a British newspaper. Reeve then conducted investigations into subjects such as arms-dealing, nuclear smuggling, terrorism and organised crime before he began studying the 1993 World Trade Center bombing just days after the attack. Reeve's research formed the basis for his book The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousef, Osama bin Laden and the future of terrorism. Published in the UK and USA in the late 1990s, The New Jackals was the first book on bin Laden. Classified information cited by Reeve detailed the existence, development, and aims of the terrorist group al-Qaeda. The book warned that al-Qaeda was planning huge attacks on the West, and concluded that an apocalyptic terrorist strike by the group was almost inevitable. It has been a New York Times bestseller[1], and in the three months after the 9/11 attacks it was one of the top three bestselling books in the United States.[2] After the 9/11 attacks Reeve became a regular commentator and reference source on the emerging terror threat.[3] He has been quoted in The New York Times warning that al-Qaeda was moving "far beyond being a terrorist organization to being almost a state of mind. That’s terribly significant because it gives the movement a scope and longevity it didn’t have before 9/11.”[3]

Reeve followed The New Jackals with a study of the 1972 Munich massacre called One Day in September: the full story of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre and the Israeli revenge operation 'Wrath of God', published in 2000 by Faber & Faber. The book detailed the siege and the massacre, in which 11 Israeli athletes and officials were killed by Black September, the global recriminations, and the launch of an Israeli revenge mission.[4] The accompanying documentary film of the same name won the Academy Award for Documentary Feature and was screened in cinemas around the world. The book was described by The New Yorker as 'highly skilled and detailed...it’s a page-turner'.

After the attacks of 9/11 Reeve began making travel documentaries for the BBC in obscure or troubled parts of the world. After vomiting blood and being diagnosed with malaria on a journey around the Equator, he became an ambassador for the Malaria Awareness Campaign.[5] [6]

Simon Reeve is the older brother of award-winning photographer James Reeve[4], former winner of the Nikon/Wanderlust/The Independent International Professional Travel Photographer of the Year Award [5], who has been recognised by the National Portrait Gallery Portrait Prize and the Observer Hodge award for his work in Afghanistan.[7]

[edit] Television

[edit] Tropic of Capricorn

Tropic of Capricorn is a four-part 2008 BBC documentary series in which Reeve tracked the southern edge of the tropics region around the world. The series, and the accompanying book, also written by Reeve, outlined his journey through southern Africa, Madagascar, Australia and across South America. Reeve crossed the Andes mountains, the Namib, Kalahari and Atacama deserts, found giant rats detecting landmines in Mozambique and was forced to eat penis soup by Madagascan royalty. He met miners scrabbling for gems in dark, dangerous tunnels and a British anthropologist fighting to save forest communities in South America. He also went hunting with a tribe of former cannibals, travelled the equivalent of half-way up Everest, ate dried caterpillars, grilled llama, sheep eyes, and searched for wild honey in the forests of northern Argentina.[8] Reeve described the journey as his "greatest challenge". [9] Tropic of Cancer is currently scheduled for 2009.

[edit] Equator

Equator is a three-part BBC documentary first broadcast in September 2006 in which Reeve followed the Equator around the world. Among the places he visited were some of the most dangerous regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Colombia. The Radio Times described the Equator series as 'an extraordinary journey…revelatory…thrilling and thought-provoking…hits us with jaw-dropping facts…eye-opening…delivers a string of revealing snapshots'. The series was the Silver Award winner at the 2007 Wanderlust Travel Awards.[10] Reeve contracted malaria while filming this series.[11]

[edit] Places That Don't Exist

Places That Don't Exist was Reeve's 2005 award-winning five-part series on breakaway states and unrecognised nations, broadcast on BBC2 and broadcasters internationally. Among the countries Reeve visited for this series were Somaliland, Transniestria (where Reeve was detained for 'spying' by the KGB[6]), Nagorno-Karabakh, Ajaria, South Ossetia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Somalia, Moldova, Taiwan, and the former Soviet republic of Georgia. [12]

[edit] House of Saud (also broadcast as: Saudi: The Family in Crisis)

A one-off BBC2 and BBC World documentary filmed inside Saudi Arabia, written and presented by Reeve. The journey took Reeve across Saudi Arabia, from the cities of Jeddah and Riyadh to the vast Empty Quarter desert. Participants ranged from Saudi princes and Islamic militants, to teenage girls and Osama bin Laden's former best friend. It was broadcast in 2004.[13] [14]

[edit] Meet the Stans

A four-part BBC2 and BBC World series on Central Asia, written and presented by Reeve. The series took Reeve from the far north-west of Kazakhstan, by the Russian border, east to the Chinese border, south through Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the edge of Afghanistan, and west to Uzbekistan and the legendary Silk Road cities of Samarkand and Bukhara. It was broadcast on the BBC in 2003, and internationally during 2004 and 2005.[15] [16] [17]

[edit] Bibliography

The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousef, Osama bin Laden and the future of terrorism. The book was published in the U.S. and UK in 1998 and 1999.

One Day in September: the full story of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre and the Israeli revenge operation 'Wrath of God',

[edit] References

  1. ^ oneworld media awards 2005
  2. ^ Tales from my travels: Terrorism expert Simon Reeve | Travel | The Observer
  3. ^ Scale and Detail of Plane Scheme Recall Al Qaeda - New York Times
  4. ^ Foreign Correspondent - 22/08/2000: Interview with Simon Reeve
  5. ^ A real globe-trotter - Times Online
  6. ^ Malaria information and the prevention of malaria - Malaria Hotspots
  7. ^ Frame academy | Special reports | The Observer
  8. ^ BBC NEWS | Programmes | Capricorn
  9. ^ Capricorn
  10. ^ Equator
  11. ^ Been there, Been bitten - Case study Simon Reeves
  12. ^ Places That Don't Exist
  13. ^ House of Saud
  14. ^ BBC NEWS | Programmes | This World | Saudi: The Family in Crisis
  15. ^ BBC NEWS | World | Asia-Pacific | Meet the Stans
  16. ^ Guardian Article
  17. ^ CBC: Correspondent - December 20, 2004

[edit] Further reading