Nicholas Rankin

"Secrets and Lies: How the British Used Camouflage and Deception in Two World Wars"

Wednesday, November 4, 2009
3:30 p.m.
Mershon Center for International Security Studies
1501 Neil Ave., Columbus, OH 43201

The event is co-sponsored by the Department of Theater and the Department of History. To sign up for this event, please visit http://theatre.osu.edu/rankin or call (614) 292-5821.

Nicholas Rankin was born in Yorkshire, England, but grew up in Kenya during the Mau Mau uprising.  Educated at Shrewsbury School and Christ Church, Oxford, he lived and worked in South America and Spain before becoming a freelance writer at the age of 30. His first book, Dead Man's Chest (Faber, 1987) tells the story of following the footsteps of Robert Louis Stevenson from Scotland to Samoa. 

Rankin worked for 20 years for the BBC World Service at Bush House in London, producing and presenting a wide range of radio documentaries.  His eight-part series on ecology and evolution, A Green History of the Planet, won two UN awards.  His six-part series on drugs in nature and culture, Plants of Power, was widely praised.  

Another radio feature, on Picasso's masterpiece of 1937, led eventually to the writing of his second book, Telegram from Guernica: the Extraordinary Life of George Steer, War Correspondent (Faber, 2003).  He gave a presentation about this book at the Mershon Center in November 2003.

Rankin will discuss his most recent book, A Genius for Deception: How Cunning Helped the British Win Two World Wars.  This work of popular military history culminates a five-year process of researching and writing and is forthcoming from Oxford University Press. 

Nicholas Rankin
Free-lance writer
and broadcaster
London, England