Richard James Overy (born 23 December 1947) is a British historian who has published on the history of World War II and Nazi Germany. In 2007, as The Times editor of Complete History of the World, he chose the 50 key dates of world history.

Life and career

Overy, after being educated at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and becoming a research fellow at Churchill College, taught history at Cambridge from 1972 to 1979, as a fellow of Queens' College and from 1976 as a university assistant lecturer. He moved to King's College London, where he became professor of modern history in 1994. He was appointed to a professorship at the University of Exeter in 2004.

In 2021, Overy helped to curate objects for displays in the Imperial War Museum's Second World War galleries. Some of these objects included flight goggles and a leather helmet once used by Billy Strachan.

Overy argued that there was a difference between economic pressures induced by the problems of the Four Year Plan and economic motives to seize raw materials, industry and foreign reserves of neighbouring states as a way of accelerating the Four Year Plan. Overy asserted that the repressive capacity of the German state as a way of dealing with domestic unhappiness was somewhat downplayed by Mason.

Awards and honours

  • 1977: Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
  • 2000: Fellow of the British Academy
  • 2003: Fellow of King's College
  • 2001: Samuel Eliot Morison Prize of the Society for Military History
  • 2005: Wolfson History Prize, The Dictators: Hitler's Germany; Stalin's Russia
  • 2005: Hessell-Tiltman Prize, The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia

In media

  • Overy was featured in the 2003 ITV documentary Breaking the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on Terror.
  • Overy was featured in the 2006 BBC docudrama Nuremberg: Nazis on Trial.
  • KGNU's Claudia Cragg – interview with Overy on "Countdown To War" for Remembrance Day (Veteran's Day) 2010.
  • Overy was a featured commentator in the 2018 series Hitler's Circle of Evil.
  • Overy appeared in all four series of Rise of the Nazis, covering the subject of Hermann Goring.

Publications

  • William Morris, Viscount Nuffield (1976), .
  • The Air War: 1939–1945 (1980), .
  • The Nazi Economic Recovery, 1932–1938 (1982), .
  • Goering: The "Iron Man" (1984), .
  • All Our Working Lives (with Peter Pagnamenta, 1984), .
  • The Origins of The Second World War, edited by Patrick Finney, London: Edward Arnold, Hodder Education Publishers (1997), Third Edition (2008) .
  • Co-written with Timothy Mason: "Debate: Germany, 'Domestic Crisis' and War in 1939", pp. 200–240 in Past and Present, Number 122, February 1989; reprinted as "Debate: Germany, 'Domestic Crisis' and the War in 1939" in The Origins of The Second World War (1997).
  • The Road to War (with Andrew Wheatcroft, 1989), .
  • The Inter-War Crisis, 1919–1939 (1994), .
  • War and Economy in the Third Reich (1994), .
  • Why the Allies Won (1995), .
  • The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Third Reich (1996), .
  • The Times Atlas of the Twentieth Century (ed., 1996), .
  • Bomber Command, 1939–45 (1997), .
  • Russia's War: Blood upon the Snow (1997), . There was a companion 10-part television documentary series.
  • The Times History of the 20th Century (1999), .
  • The Battle (2000), (republished as The Battle of Britain: The Myth and the Reality).
  • Interrogations: The Nazi Elite in Allied Hands, 1945 (2001), (republished as Interrogations: Inside the Minds of the Nazi Elite).
  • Germany: A New Social and Economic History. Vol. 3: Since 1800 (ed. with Sheilagh Ogilvie, 2003), .
  • The Times Complete History of the World (6th ed., 2004), .
  • The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia (2004), .
  • Collins Atlas of Twentieth Century History (2005), .
  • Imperial War Museum's Second World War Experience Volume 1: Blitzkrieg (2008), .
  • Imperial War Museum's Second World War Experience Volume 2: Axis Ascendant (2008), .
  • 1939: Countdown to War (2009), .
  • The Morbid Age: Britain Between the Wars (2009), .
  • The Bombing War: Europe 1939–1945 (2013), (later published as The Bombers and the Bombed: Allied Air War Over Europe, 1940–1945, ).
  • A History of War in 100 Battles (2014), .
  • RAF: The Birth of the World's First Air Force (2018),
  • Blood and Ruins: The Great Imperial War, 1931–1945 (2021),
  • Why War? (2024),
  • Rain of Ruin: Tokyo, Hiroshima, and the Surrender of Japan (2025),

References

  • The British Academy, profile
  • Official register of fellows of Queens' College, Cambridge
  • Biography of Richard Overy, University of Exeter
  • Google Scholar List of publications by Overy