Mark Thompson (historian)

Mark Thompson (born 1959) is an award-winning British historian. The most recent of his four books is Birth Certificate: The Story of Danilo Kis (2013), which was described by Adam Thirlwell, in a lead review in the Times Literary Supplement, as "a great biography of the work as much as the life".

The White War. Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919 (2008)[1] is the first comprehensive narrative history in English of the part played by Italy in World War I. It was selected as Book of the Week by The Guardian newspaper, and hailed there as "magnificent ...original, masterly and definitive."[2]

Forging War (1999) is an account of the media manipulation that took place before and during the Wars of Yugoslav Succession.[3]

A Paper House (1992) is a political travelogue which describes the federal republic of Yugoslavia upon the brink of dissolution.

Thompson has also edited, with Louis Mackay, Something in the Wind: Politics after Chernobyl (1988), and has translated fiction from French, Italian and Croatian.

His CV includes stints as the head of media analysis for the biggest peacekeeping mission mounted by the United Nations (UNPROFOR), in 1994 and 1995; the first political officer to serve with the UN's smallest peacekeeping mission (UNMOP) in 1997; the spokesman and head of media affairs for the mission to Croatia of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in 1998 and 1999; and the Balkans Program Director of the International Crisis Group (ICG) in 2000 and 2001.

He lives in Oxford and works for the Media Program of the Open Society Foundations. He also supervises graduate students at the universities of Oxford and East Anglia. Thompson is an alumnus of Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood.

Awards and honours

References

  1. ↑ "The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915 - 1919". GoogleBooks.
  2. ↑ Brendon, Piers (30 August 2008). "The open veins of Italy". The Guardian.
  3. ↑ "Forging war: the media in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Hercegovina". GoogleBooks.
  4. ↑ Kirsten Reach (January 14, 2014). "NBCC finalists announced". Melville House Publishing. Retrieved January 14, 2014.
  5. ↑ "Announcing the National Book Critics Awards Finalists for Publishing Year 2013". National Book Critics Circle. January 14, 2014. Retrieved January 14, 2014.