James Holland is a writer and historian. In April 2003, he published his first work of history, Fortress Malta: An Island Under Siege 1940-43 (Orion), which became a Sunday Times top ten bestseller. It was published in the United States in October 2003 and has since been published in Italy as well. Film rights have also been sold to Miramax Films (The English Patient, Cold Mountain etc). In January 2004, his first novel, The Burning Blue, set to a backdrop of the Battle of Britain, was published by William Heinemann. In May 2005, his second work of history, Together We Stand: North Africa 1942-1943 – Turning the Tide in the West, was published by HarperCollins, and was published in the United States by Miramax Books in February 2006. His second novel, A Pair of Silver Wings, was published in March 2006. In August 2007, he published Heroes: The Greatest Generation and the Second World War.  He has recently completed a major new work on the Italian Campaign, Italy’s Sorrow: A Year of War, 1944-1945, which will be published in the UK, Commonwealth, USA and Holland in March 2008, and in Italy, Norway and Poland later in the year.

Future projects include a new history of the Battle of Britain, which will be the first account to tell the events of the summer of 1940 from both sides, and a series of novels, set during the Second World War and featuring infantryman, Jack Tanner.  The first four books of this series will be set in Norway in April 1940, France in June May and June 1940, Crete in May 1941, and North Africa in May-June 1942. 

In May 2005, he wrote and presented a film about the end of the war in Europe, Victory in Europe for UKTV History, reviewed as the day’s choice by fourteen newspapers and magazines, and which was watched by over a million viewers. He has also taken part in several other historical documentaries.  He has also written for a number of magazines and newspapers, including the Sunday Times, The Times, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, New Statesman, BBC History Magazine, Mail on Sunday and Sunday Express, and reviews books regularly for the Sunday Telegraph.

James Holland was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire in 1970, and educated King’s School, Bruton, in Somerset, and at St Chad’s College, University of Durham, where he read history. He graduated in 1992. Subsequently, he worked in the PR and Marketing Department of Random House UK Ltd Publishers. In 1996 he left and went to work in the PR department of Reed Publishers and then a year later the PR department of Penguin Books UK Ltd, where he remained for five years. He is a member of the British Commission for Military History and the Guild of Battlefield Guides, and lives in a village near Salisbury with his wife, son and daughter.

If you would like to contact James regarding anything outlined in the website then please feel free to email info@secondworldwarforum.com