Hugh Thomas

For other uses, see Hugh Thomas (disambiguation).

Hugh Swynnerton Thomas, Baron Thomas of Swynnerton (born 21 October 1931 in Windsor), is a British historian of Welsh origin and writer.

Hugh Thomas was educated at Sherborne School in Dorset before taking a BA in 1953 at Queens' College, Cambridge, he was a major scholar and he is now a Honorary Fellow. He gained a First Class in Part I of the History Tripos in 1952 and was President of the Union in 1953. He also studied at the Sorbonne in Paris. His 1961 book The Spanish Civil War won the Somerset Maugham Award for 1962. A significantly revised and enlarged third edition was published in 1977. Cuba, or the Pursuit of Freedom (1971) is a book of over 1,500 pages tracing the history of Cuba from Spanish colonial rule until the Cuban Revolution.

Hugh Thomas is married to the former Vanessa Jebb, a painter and daughter of the first Acting United Nations Secretary-General Gladwyn Jebb, and ambassador in Paris. They have three children.

From 1954 - 57 Hugh worked in the Foreign Office partly as secretary of the British Delegation to the sub committee of the UN disarmament commission. From 1966 to 1975 Hugh Thomas was Professor of History at the University of Reading, and Chairman of the European committee. He was then Chairman of the Centre for Policy Studies in London from 1979 to 1991, which worked for the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. He became a life peer as Baron Thomas of Swynnerton, of Notting Hill in Greater London in letters patent dated 16 June 1981. He has written pro-European political works such as Europe the Radical Challenge 1973, as well as histories. He is also the author of three novels.

Bibliography

• The Spanish Civil War (1961); 2nd Revised edition (1977); 4th Revised edition (2003). New revised edition (2011) to commemorate the book being 50 years in print. This book was published in 15 languages.
• Cuba or the Pursuit of Freedom (1971) and with revised editions (1998), (2002) and (2010).
• Europe: the Radical Challenge (1973).
• An Unfinished History of the World (1979) published in USA as A History of the World (then as "World History" 1998) and as the original title in London by Hamish Hamilton in (1979) and with revised editions (1981) and (1982).
• The revolution on balance Washington, DC: Cuban American National Foundation 1983 (CANF pamphlet #5)
• Armed Truce (1986)
• Ever Closer Union (1991)
• The conquest of Mexico (1993) (published in USA as Conquest: Montezuma, Cortés and the Fall of Old Mexico)
• The Slave Trade: The History of the Atlantic Slave Trade 1440–1870 Simon and Schuster. (1997)
• Rivers of Gold (2003), the first book of a trilogy about the Spanish Empire.
• Beaumarchais in Seville (2006) ISBN 9780300121032
• The Golden Age, The Spanish Empire of Charles V. (2010) The second book of a trilogy about the Spanish Empire. Published as 'The Golden Empire: Spain, Charles V, and the Creation of America (2011) in USA.
• Who Is Who of the Conquistadors (2000)
• The World's Game (novel)
• The Oxygen Age (novel)
• The Suez Affair analyses the Suez Crisis of 1956
• Goya's 'The Third of May': Europe: The Radical Challenge: 1808
• Also biographies of John Strachey (London & New York 1973 and of Eduardo Barreiros, entitled "Eduardo Barreiros and the Recovery of Spain: (New Haven, 2009)

Hugh Thomas has won the Somerset Maugham (1961), the Nonino Prize (2009), the Boccaccio Prize (2009), the Gabarron Prize (2008) and the Calvo Serer Prize (2009). He became a "Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters" in France (2008) and has the Grand Cross of the Order of Isabel the Catholic in Spain as well as the Order of the Aztec Eagle in Mexico.