James Holland

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James Holland (born 27 June 1970) is an English historian, author, and broadcaster who specializes in World War II history.

Early life and education

Holland was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire. He was educated at Chafyn Grove School, Salisbury, and King's School, Bruton, and received a Bachelor's Degree in History in 1992. Durham's St Chad's College. Tom Holland, his elder brother, is also a writer and historian.

Personal life

Holland, both a honorary secretary and a playing member of Chalke Valley Cricket Club, was instrumental in the transfer of the cricket ground from the Chalke Valley Sports Centre's combined football and cricket ground to Butt's Field, Bowerchalke, solely for cricket. He wrote a chapter about the development of the modern 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 has competed, the Authors XI.

In August 2014, he was one of 200 public figures sent to The Guardian, in the hopes of ensuring Scotland would vote to remain a member of the United Kingdom in September's referendum on the topic.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a member of both the British Commission on Military History and the Guild of Battlefield Guides. The Imperial War Museum holds his own collection.

He is the first British cyclist to complete the Tour de France, and he is the great-nephew of Olympian Charles Holland.

Holland and his wife and two children live in Wiltshire, Wiltshire.

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Career

Holland has written both novels and non-fiction history books focusing on the Second World War, as well as broadcasting documentary films on WWII for television and radio.

He is also the co-founder, co-chair, and programme director of the annual Chalke Valley History Festival, the country's biggest festival devoted entirely to history.

The We Have Ways Of Making You Talk podcast is produced by Holland and Al Murray.

In 2003, Holland's first historical account of World War II was published. Fortress Malta – An Island Under Siege 1940–1943 was lauded by Nicholas Roe for the Guardian: "Fortress Malta succeeds in demonstrating war's human position." James Holland weaves in the personal lives of pilots, soldiers, submariners, sailors, physicians, doctors, doctors, and other civilians. All are brought vividly to life in a brisk, tightly constructed storyline that has the impetus of first-hand experience."

Holland released a report in 2006 of a group of young men who served in active service during World War II. Twenty-One: In the Second World War (renamed Heroes: The Greatest Generation and the Second World War for the 2007 paperback edition) was examined by Max Hastings in the Telegraph: "Holland has already established a reputation as a discerning and perceptive recorder of human history." He uses his experience to show how many young people are finding themselves doing jobs and then assume responsibilities that may not have been expected at 21 years old, such as peacetime life."

Publishers Weekly reviewed Italy's Sorrow: A Year of War 1944–1945, noting that "this is the best popular history at its very best: meticulously researched, persuasively written, and authoritative."

In the Telegraph, historian Saul David praised Holland's book The Battle of Britain: Five Months That Changed History (2005): "Holland likes his history to be about people," his dazzling cast of characters includes civilians and servicemen, old and young, young and old. It may take him more than 300 pages to get to the Battle of Britain proper, but the pace never slowed."

Dam Busters: The Inventors and Airmen Who Led the Devastation Raid to Smash the German Dams in 1943 "painstakingly researched and beautifully told" and said it was "the definitive book on the subject, deserving a spot in any student of the famous raid, according to Aviation History magazine's 2013.

The Guardian reviewed the first volume of Holland's planned trilogy, The War in the West, 1939–1941, with writer Alexander Larman describing it as "impeccably researched and superbly written" and saying "Holland's fascinating saga contains a blend of captivating new findings and well-considered revisionism." The next two volumes in the series should be unmissable." The War in the West, 1941–1943, was published in 2017 and Kirkus Reviews called it "an expert, anecdote-filled, largely entertaining book with a predominantly British-oriented history of the conflict's middle years."

Normandy's fourth book, "far from the first, but one of the finest accounts of Europe's Allied invasion of Europe," by Kirkus Reviews and "an excellent and engrossing new look at the Normandy invasion," Publishers Weekly describes his new book Normandy '44.

Holland has contributed to the Ladybird Expert Series of children's books, with each focusing on a particular battle or a specific aspect of World War II. He has confirmed that he intends to write a total of twelve books for the series. He is also a regular contributor to Britain's War magazine.

The Burning Blues, Holland's first book, is about a young fighter pilot who is concealing a family's mystery. It takes place in the months leading up to and after World War II's declaration. "[Holland] is one of the few who can bring history to life," Nigel Jones wrote in the Guardian.

Sgt's debut is his first book in a series. In 2008, Jack Tanner, a soldier in the fictional WWII unit The King's Own Yorkshire Rangers, was published. Roger Perkins of the Telegraph loved the Odin Mission, describing it as "a meaty, all-action yarn." A total of five Jack Tanner books have been published as of 2019.

Duty Calls: Dunkirk (2011) and Duty Calls: Battle of Britain (2012) Holland has also written two young adult novels about teenage soldiers fighting in famous World War II conflicts.

For BBC Two, Holland has written and delivered a series of documentaries on World War II. The Battle of Britain: The True Story (2010) received a Breakthrough Talent Award from the BAFTA TV Craft Awards for its producer/director Aaron Young. Dam Busters: The Struggle to Smash the German Dams aired in 2011. The Battle for Malta in 2013 and Normandy '44: The Battle Beyond D-Day in 2014.

He took a rare departure from World War II to concentrate on the postwar period and the aeronautics battle in two-part BBC Two documentary Cold War, Hot Jets (2013). Sam Wollaston, who wrote it for the Guardian, called it a "rip-roaring drama."

Holland filmed multiple episodes of the PBS documentary series Pritzker Military Presents, launched by the Pritzker Military Museum & Library in Chicago beginning in 2015. Two of the episodes were based on his first two volumes of his West book trilogy: The Rise of Germany, 1939-39, 1941-1943, and The Allies Strike Back, 1941-1943, and a third was based on his 2018 book Biggest Air Battle of World War II. In 2016, he appeared on 'Hitler's Killer Subs' on National Geographic Channel's Nazi Megastructures, titled 'Hitler's Killer Subs.'

He produced a documentary for Dan Snow's on-demand history channel, HistoryHit TV, in 2018. 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 biggest military conflict of all time. In an episode of the PBS history series Secrets of the Dead, he explored the use of amphetamines in World War II and how it sparked the first pharmacological arms race.

In the History Channel series Hunting Hitler, Adolf Hitler may have survived World War II and escaped to South America.

In 2019, Holland appeared in the two-part BBC documentary series Lost home movies of Nazi Germany, where he was caught reacting to a personal video taken in Germany and its occupied territories shortly before and during the Second World War.

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