James Holland (author): Difference between revisions
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===Novels=== |
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Holland's first novel, ''The Burning Blue'' (2004), is about a young fighter pilot who is hiding a family secret. It takes place in the months leading up to and after the start of World War II. [[Nigel H. Jones|Nigel Jones]] wrote the [[Guardian]] review of it and said "[Holland] has joined the few who can bring history to life."<ref>{{cite news |last=Jones |first=Nigel |date=January 23, 2004|title=Pilot lights |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/jan/24/featuresreviews.guardianreview17 |work=Guardian |location= |access-date=May 22, 2019 }}</ref> |
Holland's first novel, ''The Burning Blue'' (2004), is about a young fighter pilot who is hiding a family secret. It takes place in the months leading up to and after the start of World War II. [[Nigel H. Jones|Nigel Jones]] wrote the [[The Guardian|Guardian]] review of it and said "[Holland] has joined the few who can bring history to life."<ref>{{cite news |last=Jones |first=Nigel |date=January 23, 2004|title=Pilot lights |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/jan/24/featuresreviews.guardianreview17 |work=Guardian |location= |access-date=May 22, 2019 }}</ref> |
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His first novel in a series featuring the exploits of Sgt. Jack Tanner, a soldier in the fictitious WWII unit The King's Own Yorkshire Rangers, was published in 2008. ''The Odin Mission'' was favorably reviewed by Roger Perkins in the ''Telegraph'', who called it "a meaty, all-action yarn".<ref>{{cite news |last=Perkins |first=Roger |date=July 13, 2008|title=The Odin Mission: taking the King's shilling |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/fictionreviews/3556382/The-Odin-Mission-taking-the-Kings-shilling.html |work=Telegraph |location= |access-date=May 22, 2019 }}</ref> As of 2019, a total of five Jack Tanner books have been published. |
His first novel in a series featuring the exploits of Sgt. Jack Tanner, a soldier in the fictitious WWII unit The King's Own Yorkshire Rangers, was published in 2008. ''The Odin Mission'' was favorably reviewed by Roger Perkins in the ''Telegraph'', who called it "a meaty, all-action yarn".<ref>{{cite news |last=Perkins |first=Roger |date=July 13, 2008|title=The Odin Mission: taking the King's shilling |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/fictionreviews/3556382/The-Odin-Mission-taking-the-Kings-shilling.html |work=Telegraph |location= |access-date=May 22, 2019 }}</ref> As of 2019, a total of five Jack Tanner books have been published. |
Revision as of 14:49, 23 May 2019
James Holland | |
---|---|
Born | 27 June 1970 |
Subject | World War II |
Spouse | Rachel |
Relatives | Tom Holland |
James Holland (born 27 June 1970) is a British historian, author and broadcaster whose work is focused on World War II.
Early life and education
Holland was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire.[1] He was educated at Chafyn Grove School, Salisbury, and King's School, Bruton, and in 1992 attained a BA degree in History from St Chad's College, Durham.[2] His elder brother Tom Holland is also a writer and historian.
Career
Holland has written both novels and non-fiction history books focusing on the Second World War, and has presented documentary programming about WWII for television and radio.
He is also the co-founder, co-chair and programme director of the annual Chalke Valley History Festival, which is the largest festival dedicated entirely to history in the UK.[3]
Non-fiction books
Holland's first historical account of World War II was published in 2003. Fortress Malta - An Island Under Siege, 1940-1943 was favorably reviewed by Nicholas Roe for the Guardian: "Fortress Malta succeeds brilliantly in showing war's human position. James Holland deftly interweaves the personal histories of pilots, soldiers, submariners, sailors, nurses, office clerks and other civilians. All are brought compellingly to life in a brisk, tightly constructed narrative that has the impetus of first-hand experience."[4]
In 2006, Holland published a study of a selection of young men who reached adulthood during World War II. Twenty-One: Coming of Age in the Second World War (retitled Heroes: The Greatest Generation and the Second World War for the 2007 paperback release) was reviewed by Max Hastings in the Telegraph: "Holland has already achieved a reputation as a fine and perceptive recorder of human experience. Here, he exploits his skills to describe what it is like for very young people to find themselves performing tasks and sometimes assuming responsibilities greater than anything they could have known at 21 in peacetime life."[5]
His 2008 book Italy's Sorrow: A Year of War, 1944-1945 was reviewed by Publishers Weekly, which said: "This is popular history at its very best: exhaustively researched, compellingly written and authoritative".[6]
Historian Saul David, writing in the Telegraph, praised Holland's book The Battle of Britain: Five Months that Changed History, May - October 1940 (2010): "Holland prefers his history to be about people, and his dazzling cast of characters includes civilians and servicemen, men and women, young and old. It may take him more than 300 pages to get to the Battle of Britain proper, yet the pace never flags".[7]
Aviation History magazine called his 2013 history, Dam Busters: The True Story of the Inventors and Airmen Who Led the Devastating Raid to Smash the German Dams in 1943 "painstakingly researched and splendidly told" and said that it was "the definitive book on the subject, deserving a place in the library of any student of the famous raid".[8]
In 2015, The Guardian reviewed the first volume in Holland's planned trilogy, The War in the West, Volume I: Germany Ascendant 1939-1941, with writer Alexander Larman calling it "impeccably researched and superbly written" and saying "Holland’s fascinating saga offers a mixture of captivating new research and well-considered revisionism. The next two volumes should be unmissable."[9] The second volume, The War in the West:The Allies Strike Back, 1941-1943, was published in 2017 and was called by Kirkus Reviews "an expert, anecdote-filled, thoroughly entertaining if heavily British-oriented history of the war’s middle years".[10]
His 2019 book Normandy '44: D-Day and the Battle for France was called "far from the first but among the better histories of the Allied invasion of Europe" by Kirkus Reviews[11] and "an excellent and engrossing new look at the Normandy invasion" by Publishers Weekly.[12]
Holland also writes entries in the Ladybird Expert Series of books for children, with each focused on a particular battle or aspect of World War II. He has said that he plans to write a total of twelve books for the series.[13]
Novels
Holland's first novel, The Burning Blue (2004), is about a young fighter pilot who is hiding a family secret. It takes place in the months leading up to and after the start of World War II. Nigel Jones wrote the Guardian review of it and said "[Holland] has joined the few who can bring history to life."[14]
His first novel in a series featuring the exploits of Sgt. Jack Tanner, a soldier in the fictitious WWII unit The King's Own Yorkshire Rangers, was published in 2008. The Odin Mission was favorably reviewed by Roger Perkins in the Telegraph, who called it "a meaty, all-action yarn".[15] As of 2019, a total of five Jack Tanner books have been published.
Holland has also written two young adult novels about teenage soldiers taking part in famous World War II battles: Duty Calls: Dunkirk (2011)[16] and Duty Calls: Battle of Britain (2012).[17]
Documentaries
Holland has written and presented a number of documentaries on World War II for the BBC. Battle of Britain: The Real Story (2010) received a Break-through Talent nomination from the BAFTA TV Craft Award for its producer/director Aaron Young.[18] Dam Busters: The Race to Smash the German Dams aired in 2011, The Battle for Malta in 2013 and Normandy '44: The Battle Beyond D-Day in 2014.[19]
With his two-part BBC documentary Cold War, Hot Jets (2013), he took a rare departure from World War II to focus on the postwar era and the aeronautics race. Reviewing it for the Guardian, Sam Wollaston called it a "rip-roaring documentary."[20]
Starting in 2015, Holland filmed multiple episodes of the PBS documentary series Pritzker Military Presents, produced by the Pritzker Military Museum & Library in Chicago. Two of the episodes were based upon the first two volumes of his War in the West book trilogy: The Rise of Germany, 1939 – 1941[21] and The Allies Strike Back, 1941-1943,[22] and a third was based upon his 2018 book Big Week: The Biggest Air Battle of World War II.[23] He also appeared on an episode of the National Geographic Channel's Nazi Megastructures, titled 'Hitler's Killer Subs', in 2016.[19]
In 2018, he made a documentary for Dan Snow's on-demand history channel, HistoryHit TV. In Imphal & Kohima: Britain's Greatest Battle, he argued that the simultaneous 1944 Battle of Imphal and Battle of Kohima, in which Allied forces drove back the Japanese attempt to invade India, was Britain's greatest military battle of all time.[24]
Holland also appeared as one of the team of experts investigating the theory that Adolf Hitler could have survived WWII and escaped to South America in the History Channel series Hunting Hitler (2015-2018).[25]
Personal life
Holland is honorary secretary and a playing member of Chalke Valley Cricket Club[26] and was instrumental in organising the relocation of the cricket ground from a combined football and cricket ground at the Chalke Valley Sports Centre to a new ground[27] solely for cricket at Butt's Field, Bowerchalke. He contributed a chapter about the creation of the new cricket ground to the book The Authors XI: A Season of English Cricket from Hackney to Hambledon, which was collectively written by members of another cricket team on which he plays, the Authors XI.[28]
In August 2014, he was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian expressing their hope that Scotland would vote to remain part of the United Kingdom in September's referendum on that issue.[29]
He is a member of both the British Commission for Military History and the Guild of Battlefield Guides,[1] and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.[2] He has his own collection at the Imperial War Museum.[2]
Holland lives in Wiltshire with his wife and two children.[30]
Books
Non-fiction for adults
- Holland, James (2003). Fortress Malta: An Island Under Siege 1940-43. London: Orion. ISBN 978-0752852881.
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Non-fiction for children
- Holland, James (1 June 2017). The Battle of Britain (Ladybird Expert Series). illus. Keith Burns. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-7181-8629-6.
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(help) - Holland, James (22 March 2018). Blitzkrieg (Ladybird Expert Series). illus. Keith Burns. London: Penguin. ISBN 978-0-7181-8630-2.
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Novels for adults
- Holland, James (2004). The Burning Blue. London: William Heinemann. ISBN 978-0434010158.
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Novels for young adults
- Holland, James (2011). Duty Calls: Dunkirk. London: Puffin. ISBN 978-0141332192.
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Broadcasts
- The end of the war in Europe, Victory in Europe (UKTV History May 2005)
- Battle of Britain: The Real Story (BBC 2 film September 2010 made by Maya Vision International, owned by historian Michael Wood)
- Dam Busters (Maya Vision International for BBC2 8 November 2011) [31]
- Battle for Malta (BBC2 7 January 2013) [32]
- Cold War, Hot Jets (BBC2 8 November 2013)
- Normandy '44: The Battle Beyond D-Day (BBC2 6 June 2014)
- Nazi Megastructures (National Geographic 2013 - 2016)
- Hunting Hitler (History 2016-2018)[33]
References
- ^ a b "James Holland". Granta. April 2008. Retrieved 19 May 2019.
- ^ a b c "James Holland - Historian and Author". St. Chad's College. 2 May 2017. Retrieved 22 May 2019.
- ^ "Chalke Valley History Festival". cvhf.org.uk.
- ^ Roe, Nicholas (1 May 2004). "Against all odds". Guardian. Retrieved 21 May 2019.
- ^ Hastings, Max (28 May 2006). "A fine account of a triumphant defeat". Telegraph. Retrieved 21 May 2019.
- ^ "Italy's Sorrow: A Year of War, 1944-1945". Publishers Weekly. 2008. Retrieved 19 May 2019.
- ^ David, Saul (16 July 2010). "Three books on the Battle of Britain: review". Telegraph. Retrieved 21 May 2019.
- ^ O'Dell, Nicholas (November 2014). "Dam Busters: The True Story of the Inventors and Airmen Who Led the Devastating Raid to Smash the German Dams in 1943". Aviation History. Retrieved 21 May 2019.
- ^ Larman, Alexander (6 September 2015). "The War in the West review – revelatory account of second world war". Guardian. Retrieved 19 May 2019.
- ^ "The Allies Strike Back, 1941-1943 by James Holland". Kirkus Reviews. 1 April 2017. Retrieved 19 May 2019.
- ^ "Normandy '44: D-Day and the Battle for France by James Holland". Kirkus Reviews. 1 May 2019. Retrieved 19 May 2019.
- ^ "Normandy '44: D-Day and the Battle for France". Publishers Weekly. 2019. Retrieved 19 May 2019.
- ^ "Second World War Historian James Holland Reveals All On Upcoming WW2 Projects – Part Two". WWII Nation. 2017. Retrieved 19 May 2019.
- ^ Jones, Nigel (23 January 2004). "Pilot lights". Guardian. Retrieved 22 May 2019.
- ^ Perkins, Roger (13 July 2008). "The Odin Mission: taking the King's shilling". Telegraph. Retrieved 22 May 2019.
- ^ "Duty Calls: Dunkirk by James Holland". goodreads. Retrieved 22 May 2019.
- ^ "Duty Calls: Battle of Britain by James Holland". goodreads. Retrieved 22 May 2019.
- ^ "Television Craft Award Winners in 2011". BAFTA. 8 May 2011. Retrieved 23 May 2019.
- ^ a b "James Holland (VII)". imdb. Retrieved 23 May 2019.
- ^ Wollaston, Sam (9 November 2013). "Cold War, Hot Jets - TV review". Guardian. Retrieved 23 May 2019.
- ^ "James Holland: The Rise of Germany, (1939-1941)". Pritzker Military Museum & Library. 2015. Retrieved 23 May 2019.
- ^ "James Holland: The Allies Strike Back, (1941-1943)". Pritzker Military Museum & Library. 2018. Retrieved 23 May 2019.
- ^ "James Holland: Big Week, The Biggest Air Battle of World War Two". Pritzker Military Museum & Library. 2018. Retrieved 23 May 2019.
- ^ "History Hit Podcast Network: James Holland on Imphal and Kohima". soundcloud. 31 January 2018. Retrieved 23 May 2019.
- ^ "Hunting Hitler - Bios". History. Retrieved 23 May 2019.
- ^ Chalke Valley Cricket Club website Archived 31 August 2013 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ New Cricket Ground website Archived 26 August 2014 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Authors Cricket Club (2013). The Authors XI: A Season of English Cricket from Hackney to Hambledon. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-1-4088-4045-0.
- ^ "Celebrities' open letter to Scotland – full text and list of signatories". The Guardian. London. 7 August 2014. Retrieved 26 August 2014.
- ^ "James Holland". Macmillan Publishers. Retrieved 22 May 2019.
- ^ "Broad Chalke local people 2". broadchalke.info.
- ^ "Broad Chalke local people 2". broadchalke.info.
- ^ https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4351479/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t4