Brendan Simms - Revision history

Olivia Rendall at 15:20, 2 February 2015

2015-02-02T15:20:21Z

Tom Griffin: /* Education and career */

2013-07-25T19:50:00Z

Education and career

Tom Griffin: /* Articles */

2013-07-23T15:05:40Z

Articles

Tom Griffin: /* Yugoslavia */

2013-07-22T22:18:17Z

Yugoslavia

Tom Griffin: /* Education and career */

2013-07-22T21:30:35Z

Education and career

Tom Griffin: /* Education and career */

2013-07-22T18:19:10Z

Education and career

Tom Griffin: /* Articles */

2013-03-17T20:02:07Z

Articles

Tom Griffin: /* Publications */

2013-03-17T19:52:24Z

Publications

Tom Griffin: /* Education and career */

2013-03-14T03:01:11Z

Education and career

Tom Griffin: /* Background */

2013-03-08T22:27:18Z

Background

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		+	[[File:Brendan Simms.jpg\|200px\|thumb\|right\|Brendan Simms]]
	'''Brendan Peter Simms''' (born 3 September 1967) is the President and founder of the [[Henry Jackson Society]].<ref>[http://www.henryjacksonsociety.org/member.asp?pageid=40&mid=1 Dr Brendan Simms], Henry Jackson Society, accessed 19 April 2009.</ref> He is also Newton Sheehy Teaching Fellow at the Centre of International Studies, University of Cambridge.<ref>[http://www.intstudies.cam.ac.uk/staff/simms-brendana.html Brendan Simms], Centre of International Studies, University of Cambridge, accessed 19 April 2009.</ref> He is a fellow of [[Peterhouse College]], Cambridge.<ref>[http://www.henryjacksonsociety.org/cms/harriercollectionitems/History%20of%20Humanitarian%20Intervention%20Colloquium.pdf Towards a History of Humanitarian Intervention], Henry Jackson Society, accessed 19 April 2009.</ref>		'''Brendan Peter Simms''' (born 3 September 1967) is the President and founder of the [[Henry Jackson Society]].<ref>[http://www.henryjacksonsociety.org/member.asp?pageid=40&mid=1 Dr Brendan Simms], Henry Jackson Society, accessed 19 April 2009.</ref> He is also Newton Sheehy Teaching Fellow at the Centre of International Studies, University of Cambridge.<ref>[http://www.intstudies.cam.ac.uk/staff/simms-brendana.html Brendan Simms], Centre of International Studies, University of Cambridge, accessed 19 April 2009.</ref> He is a fellow of [[Peterhouse College]], Cambridge.<ref>[http://www.henryjacksonsociety.org/cms/harriercollectionitems/History%20of%20Humanitarian%20Intervention%20Colloquium.pdf Towards a History of Humanitarian Intervention], Henry Jackson Society, accessed 19 April 2009.</ref>

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	Another right-wing figure who has influenced Simms is the Nazi apologist [[Carl Schmitt]] whom Simms credits with providing him a theoretical inspiration for his book ''The Impact of Napoleon''. <ref>Brendan Simms, ''The Impact of Napoleon: Prussian High Politics, Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Executive, 1797-1806'' (Cambridge University Press, 2002) p.xi</ref> In ''The Impact of Napoleon'' Simms writes that Schmitt ‘was well placed to observe the crucial role played by personal advisors, secretaries and others who monopolised Hitler’s immediate surroundings... [and was] sensitised to the importance of personal antipathy and ambition. <ref>Brendan Simms, ''The Impact of Napoleon: Prussian High Politics, Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Executive, 1797-1806'' (Cambridge University Press, 2002) p.15</ref>		Another right-wing figure who has influenced Simms is the Nazi apologist [[Carl Schmitt]] whom Simms credits with providing him a theoretical inspiration for his book ''The Impact of Napoleon''. <ref>Brendan Simms, ''The Impact of Napoleon: Prussian High Politics, Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Executive, 1797-1806'' (Cambridge University Press, 2002) p.xi</ref> In ''The Impact of Napoleon'' Simms writes that Schmitt ‘was well placed to observe the crucial role played by personal advisors, secretaries and others who monopolised Hitler’s immediate surroundings... [and was] sensitised to the importance of personal antipathy and ambition. <ref>Brendan Simms, ''The Impact of Napoleon: Prussian High Politics, Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Executive, 1797-1806'' (Cambridge University Press, 2002) p.15</ref>
		+
		+	The ''Times Higher Educational Supplement'' reported in 2001, that Simms "lectureship at the [[Centre for International Studies]] at Cambridge is funded by [[BAT]]; his seminar series on European Security, co-chaired by [[Paul Cornish]], was funded by [[Lockheed Martin Corporation]].<ref>Brendan Simms, Strategic Players In Tactical Retreats, ''Times Higher Educational Supplement'', 23 November 2001.</ref>

	===Yugoslavia===		===Yugoslavia===

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 ===Articles===
 *[http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/000546.php Brendan Simms asks, why do British Muslims give the United States no credit for liberating Bosnia and Kosovo?], Social Affairs Unit, 18 August 2005.
 *[http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/europe/2013/03/cracked-heart-old-world Cracked heart of the old world], ''New Statesman'', 14 March 2013.

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 ===Yugoslavia===
-Simms wrote a pamphlet for the Conservative organisation, the [[Bow Group]], entitled 'Bosnia: why the Americans are right' which was published in November 1994. In 1998 he was appointed Newton Sheehy teaching fellow in international relations at the University of Cambridge Centre of International Studies, trustee of the [[Bosnian Institute]] in London and a member of the Executive Committee of the British Irish Association. <ref>''Debrett’s People of Today'', [http://www.debretts.com/people/biographies/browse/s/5119/Brendan%20Peter+SIMMS.aspx Brendan Simms] [Accessed 6 September 2010]</ref>
+Simms wrote a pamphlet for the Conservative organisation, the [[Bow Group]], entitled 'Bosnia: why the Americans are right' which was published in November 1994.<ref name="Debretts">''Debrett’s People of Today'', [http://www.debretts.com/people/biographies/browse/s/5119/Brendan%20Peter+SIMMS.aspx Brendan Simms] [Accessed 6 September 2010]</ref> He addressed the Croation Writers' Festival in Zagreb in December 1994.<ref>Brendan Simms, Bosnia: The Lessons of History? in Thomas Cushman, Stjepan G. Meštrović, eds, This Time We Knew: Western Responses to Genocide in Bosnia, New York University Press, 1996, p.77.</ref>
 In November 2001 Allen Lane published Simms's book ''Unfinest Hour: Britain and the Destruction of Bosnia'', a highly critical account of British (non-interventionist) policy during the Bosnian War. Simms claimed that, 'Britain played a particularly disastrous role in the destruction of Bosnia, more so even than France. Her political leaders became afflicted by a particularly disabling form of conservative pessimism which disposed them not only to reject military intervention themselves but to prevent anybody else, particularly the Americans, from intervening either.' <ref>John Phillips, 'British role in Bosnia was its "unfinest hour"', ''The Times'', 20 October 2001; p.20.</ref> Writing in ''The Observer'', [[Nick Cohen]] called the book 'the best epitaph for the wretched years of the Major administration I've read to date' and complemented Simms's 'attention to telling detail and cool, literate anger'. <ref>Nick Cohen, 'Books: Betrayal in the Balkans: Britain's refusal to act in the former Yugoslavia left the Serbs free to butcher thousands of Bosnians', ''The Observer'', 4 November 2001; p.15</ref> [[Douglas Hurd]], who was heavily criticised in the book, wrote that 'From beginning to end Simms has written a polemic... The record, as he tells it, is one-sided from the beginning; offensive epithets are scattered over every page.' <Ref>Lord Douglas Hurd, 'Book review: Unfinest Hour: Britain and the Destruction of Bosnia: The war we steered clear of', ''Scotsman'', 3 November 2001; p.8</ref> The ''Financial Times'' called its 'an indignant account, verging at times on the intemperate'. <ref>'Lest we forget', ''Financial Times'', 17 November 2001; p.4</ref> ''[[The Economist]]'' wrote:

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	Another right-wing figure who has influenced Simms is the Nazi apologist [[Carl Schmitt]] whom Simms credits with providing him a theoretical inspiration for his book ''The Impact of Napoleon''. <ref>Brendan Simms, ''The Impact of Napoleon: Prussian High Politics, Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Executive, 1797-1806'' (Cambridge University Press, 2002) p.xi</ref> In ''The Impact of Napoleon'' Simms writes that Schmitt ‘was well placed to observe the crucial role played by personal advisors, secretaries and others who monopolised Hitler’s immediate surroundings... [and was] sensitised to the importance of personal antipathy and ambition. <ref>Brendan Simms, ''The Impact of Napoleon: Prussian High Politics, Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Executive, 1797-1806'' (Cambridge University Press, 2002) p.15</ref>		Another right-wing figure who has influenced Simms is the Nazi apologist [[Carl Schmitt]] whom Simms credits with providing him a theoretical inspiration for his book ''The Impact of Napoleon''. <ref>Brendan Simms, ''The Impact of Napoleon: Prussian High Politics, Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Executive, 1797-1806'' (Cambridge University Press, 2002) p.xi</ref> In ''The Impact of Napoleon'' Simms writes that Schmitt ‘was well placed to observe the crucial role played by personal advisors, secretaries and others who monopolised Hitler’s immediate surroundings... [and was] sensitised to the importance of personal antipathy and ambition. <ref>Brendan Simms, ''The Impact of Napoleon: Prussian High Politics, Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Executive, 1797-1806'' (Cambridge University Press, 2002) p.15</ref>
		+
		+	===Yugoslavia===

	Simms wrote a pamphlet for the Conservative organisation, the [[Bow Group]], entitled 'Bosnia: why the Americans are right' which was published in November 1994. In 1998 he was appointed Newton Sheehy teaching fellow in international relations at the University of Cambridge Centre of International Studies, trustee of the [[Bosnian Institute]] in London and a member of the Executive Committee of the British Irish Association. <ref>''Debrett’s People of Today'', [http://www.debretts.com/people/biographies/browse/s/5119/Brendan%20Peter+SIMMS.aspx Brendan Simms] [Accessed 6 September 2010]</ref>		Simms wrote a pamphlet for the Conservative organisation, the [[Bow Group]], entitled 'Bosnia: why the Americans are right' which was published in November 1994. In 1998 he was appointed Newton Sheehy teaching fellow in international relations at the University of Cambridge Centre of International Studies, trustee of the [[Bosnian Institute]] in London and a member of the Executive Committee of the British Irish Association. <ref>''Debrett’s People of Today'', [http://www.debretts.com/people/biographies/browse/s/5119/Brendan%20Peter+SIMMS.aspx Brendan Simms] [Accessed 6 September 2010]</ref>

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 Another right-wing figure who has influenced Simms is the Nazi apologist [[Carl Schmitt]] whom Simms credits with providing him a theoretical inspiration for his book ''The Impact of Napoleon''. <ref>Brendan Simms, ''The Impact of Napoleon: Prussian High Politics, Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Executive, 1797-1806'' (Cambridge University Press, 2002) p.xi</ref> In ''The Impact of Napoleon'' Simms writes that Schmitt ‘was well placed to observe the crucial role played by personal advisors, secretaries and others who monopolised Hitler’s immediate surroundings... [and was] sensitised to the importance of personal antipathy and ambition. <ref>Brendan Simms, ''The Impact of Napoleon: Prussian High Politics, Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Executive, 1797-1806'' (Cambridge University Press, 2002) p.15</ref>
-In 1994 Simms wrote a pamphlet for the Conservative organisation, the [[Bow Group]], entitled 'Bosnia: why the Americans are right' which was published in November 1994. In 1998 he was appointed Newton Sheehy teaching fellow in international relations at the University of Cambridge Centre of International Studies, trustee of the [[Bosnian Institute]] in London and a member of the Executive Committee of the British Irish Association. <ref>''Debrett’s People of Today'', [http://www.debretts.com/people/biographies/browse/s/5119/Brendan%20Peter+SIMMS.aspx Brendan Simms] [Accessed 6 September 2010]</ref>
+Simms wrote a pamphlet for the Conservative organisation, the [[Bow Group]], entitled 'Bosnia: why the Americans are right' which was published in November 1994. In 1998 he was appointed Newton Sheehy teaching fellow in international relations at the University of Cambridge Centre of International Studies, trustee of the [[Bosnian Institute]] in London and a member of the Executive Committee of the British Irish Association. <ref>''Debrett’s People of Today'', [http://www.debretts.com/people/biographies/browse/s/5119/Brendan%20Peter+SIMMS.aspx Brendan Simms] [Accessed 6 September 2010]</ref>
 In November 2001 Allen Lane published Simms's book ''Unfinest Hour: Britain and the Destruction of Bosnia'', a highly critical account of British (non-interventionist) policy during the Bosnian War. Simms claimed that, 'Britain played a particularly disastrous role in the destruction of Bosnia, more so even than France. Her political leaders became afflicted by a particularly disabling form of conservative pessimism which disposed them not only to reject military intervention themselves but to prevent anybody else, particularly the Americans, from intervening either.' <ref>John Phillips, 'British role in Bosnia was its "unfinest hour"', ''The Times'', 20 October 2001; p.20.</ref> Writing in ''The Observer'', [[Nick Cohen]] called the book 'the best epitaph for the wretched years of the Major administration I've read to date' and complemented Simms's 'attention to telling detail and cool, literate anger'. <ref>Nick Cohen, 'Books: Betrayal in the Balkans: Britain's refusal to act in the former Yugoslavia left the Serbs free to butcher thousands of Bosnians', ''The Observer'', 4 November 2001; p.15</ref> [[Douglas Hurd]], who was heavily criticised in the book, wrote that 'From beginning to end Simms has written a polemic... The record, as he tells it, is one-sided from the beginning; offensive epithets are scattered over every page.' <Ref>Lord Douglas Hurd, 'Book review: Unfinest Hour: Britain and the Destruction of Bosnia: The war we steered clear of', ''Scotsman'', 3 November 2001; p.8</ref> The ''Financial Times'' called its 'an indignant account, verging at times on the intemperate'. <ref>'Lest we forget', ''Financial Times'', 17 November 2001; p.4</ref> ''[[The Economist]]'' wrote:

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	===Articles===		===Articles===
		+	*[http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/000546.php Brendan Simms asks, why do British Muslims give the United States no credit for liberating Bosnia and Kosovo?], Social Affairs Unit, 18 August 2005.
	*[http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/europe/2013/03/cracked-heart-old-world Cracked heart of the old world], ''New Statesman'', 14 March 2013.		*[http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/europe/2013/03/cracked-heart-old-world Cracked heart of the old world], ''New Statesman'', 14 March 2013.

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 *The Hanoverian Dimension in British History, 1714-1837 edited by Brendan Simms and [[Torsten Riotte]], Cambridge University Press, 2007.
 *Three Victories and a Defeat: The Rise and Fall of the First British Empire, 1714-1783, Allen Lane, 2007.
 ==Affiliations==

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 Brendan Simms was educated at the German School and Trinity College in Dublin before taking a doctorate at [[Peterhouse, Cambridge]]. <ref>Catherine Milton, ‘Standing room only for a rarity’, ''The Times'', 31 May 1994</ref> His PhD thesis 'Anglo-Prussian relations, 1804-1806: The Napoleonic Threat', was published in 1992. <ref>Brendan Peter Simms, 'Anglo-Prussian relations, 1804-1806: the Napoleonic threat', Faculty of History, Dissertation - Cambridge, 1992.</ref> The thesis is likely to have formed the basis of Simms's 1997 book ''The Impact of Napoleon: Prussian High Politics, Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Executive, 1797-1806''.
-Simms was a resident fellow at Christ Church Oxford from 1992 to 1993 and was appointed a fellow and director of studies in history at [[Peterhouse]] in 1993. <ref>Debrett’s People of Today, [http://www.debretts.com/people/biographies/browse/s/5119/Brendan%20Peter+SIMMS.aspx Brendan Simms] [Accessed 6 September 2010]</ref> In May 1994 Simms, then 26, was the subject of a flattering article in ''[[The Times]]'' which reported that there was 'standing room only' for his lectures on decision making in the Third Reich. It referred to Simms as 'that rare combination: a teacher and a thinker.' ''The Times'' reported that Simms 'challenges the view that top Nazis actually believed much of the ideology'.  'His vision of decision making in the Third Reich,' according to the article 'traces many policies of the Holocaust to a grotesque parody of office politics. For Dr Simms it was the competition among favourites around Hitler that drove events.' <ref>Catherine Milton, ‘Standing room only for a rarity’, ''The Times'', 31 May 1994</ref>
+Simms was a resident fellow at Christ Church Oxford from 1992 to 1993 and was appointed a fellow and director of studies in history at [[Peterhouse]] in 1993. <ref>Debrett’s People of Today, [http://www.debretts.com/people/biographies/browse/s/5119/Brendan%20Peter+SIMMS.aspx Brendan Simms] [Accessed 6 September 2010]</ref> In May 1994 Simms, then 26, was the subject of a flattering article in ''[[The Times]]'' which reported that there was 'standing room only' for his lectures on decision making in the Third Reich. It referred to Simms as 'that rare combination: a teacher and a thinker.' ''The Times'' reported that Simms 'challenges the view that top Nazis actually believed much of the ideology'.  'His vision of decision making in the Third Reich,' according to the article 'traces many policies of the Holocaust to a grotesque parody of office politics. For Dr Simms it was the competition among favourites around Hitler that drove events.' <ref>Catherine Milton, ‘Standing room only for a rarity’, ''The Times'', 31 May 1994</ref> [[Matthew D'Ancona]] hailed his "ingenious and disturbing new gloss on the history of the Third Reich", in an article on the ''Times'' survey of 22 'superdons'.<ref>Matthew D'Ancona, The minds that matter, ''The Times'', 31 May 1994.</ref>
 Simms's belief that the politics of the Third Reich could only be understood through examining its internal politics, and that this drove its ideology, was rooted in the political philosophy of the late [[Maurice Cowling]], the leading figure in the so called 'Peterhouse Right'. In the entry on Cowling in the ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' Jonathan Parry writes that in his 1963 book ''The Nature and Limits of Political Science'' Cowling argued that, 'the political process was far too complex and fluid to be rationalized by theorists, being fully intelligible only to those within the system.' <ref>Jonathan Parry, ‘[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/95252 Cowling, Maurice John (1926–2005)]’, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, Jan 2009; online edn, May 2009 [Accessed 15 Oct 2010]</ref> [[Maurice Cowling|Cowling]] had adopted a similar approach to Simms in his attempt to understand the reaction to Hitler in Britain. Peter Oborne writes:

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 Brendan Simms was born on 3 September 1967, the son of two academics David and Anngret Simms.<ref>Catherine Milton, ‘Standing room only for a rarity’, ''The Times'', 31 May 1994; Brendan Simms, ''The Impact of Napoleon: Prussian High Politics, Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Executive, 1797-1806'' (University of Cambridge Press, 1997) p.xii.</ref>
-Simms's father [[David Simms]] is a nephew of Dr [[Otto Simms]], a former Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh, and Primate of all-Ireland.<ref>Anita Guidera, [http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/academic-caught-up-in-factory-planning-dispute-26362884.html Academic caught up in factory planning dispute], ''Irish Independent'', 1 September 2006.</ref> Another uncle of David Simms, [[Brian Goold-Verschoyle]], became a Communist spy despite background in the Anglo-Irish gentry, and eventually died in prison in the Soviet Union in 1942.<ref>Diarmaid Fleming, [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/6759483.stm Irish victims of Stalin uncovered], BBC News, 16 June 2007.</ref>
+Simms's father [[David Simms]] is a nephew of Dr [[Otto Simms]], a former Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh, and Primate of all-Ireland.<ref>Anita Guidera, [http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/academic-caught-up-in-factory-planning-dispute-26362884.html Academic caught up in factory planning dispute], ''Irish Independent'', 1 September 2006.</ref> Another uncle of David Simms, [[Brian Goold-Verschoyle]], became a Communist spy despite his background in the Anglo-Irish gentry, and eventually died in prison in the Soviet Union in 1942.<ref>Diarmaid Fleming, [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/6759483.stm Irish victims of Stalin uncovered], BBC News, 16 June 2007.</ref>
 Brendan Simms' mother was born Anngret Erichson, into a publishing family in Rostock, Germany. Her father, [[Knut Erichson]] served as an army officer throughout World War Two, including time on the eastern front. As a result, he was warned to flee East Germany, losing the family publishing business in the process. He later became a joint editor of [[Frankfurter Hefte]], a left-wing Catholic journal. While teaching in Scotland, Anngret Erichson met David Simms, then lecturing in Mathematics at Glasgow University. They married and settled in Dublin in 1965, where David Simms became a Professor at Trinity College. After a campaign to secure, Anngret Simms eventually became a distinguished head of geography and associate professor at University College Dublin.<ref>Eileen Battersby, A career mapped out, ''Irish Times'', 20 November 2004.</ref>