Brendan Simms

Brendan Simms is the son of Anngret and David Simms, a professor of mathematics.[https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/historian-says-varadkar-has-breached-letter-and-spirit-of-the-belfast-agreement-1.3961740 Historian says Varadkar has breached letter and spirit of the Belfast Agreement], irishtimes.com, 19 July 2019 He is also a grand-nephew of Brian Goold-Verschoyle, a member of the Communist Party of Ireland, who became a Soviet spy and died in a Soviet gulag in 1942.

Simms was brought up in the Roman Catholic faith. He studied at Trinity College Dublin, where he was elected a Scholar in 1986,{{cite web|url=http://www.tcdlife.ie/scholars/scholar/about-list.php|title=List of Scholars|work=TCD Life|accessdate=20 December 2015}} before completing his doctoral dissertation, Anglo-Prussian relations, 1804–1806: The Napoleonic Threat, at Peterhouse, Cambridge, under the supervision of Tim Blanning in 1993.

Simms became a Fellow of Peterhouse and now also serves as Professor of the History of European International Relations at the University of Cambridge, where he lectures and leads seminars, specializing in international history since 1945. [http://www.polis.cam.ac.uk/Staff/professor-brendan-simms Brendan Simms profile], Department of Politics and International Studies, Cambridge University

In addition to his academic work, Simms also serves as the president{{Cite web|url = http://henryjacksonsociety.org/people/professional-staff/|title = Professional Staff|accessdate = 16 November 2014|publisher = Henry Jackson Society}} of the Henry Jackson Society, which advocates the view that supporting and promoting liberal democracy and liberal interventionism should be an integral part of Western foreign policy,{{Cite web|url = http://henryjacksonsociety.org/about-the-society/statement-of-principles/|title = Statement of Principles|accessdate = 16 November 2014|publisher = Henry Jackson Society}} and as President of the Project for Democratic Union, a Munich-based student-organised think tank.[https://www.theguardian.com/profile/brendan-simms Brendan Simms ], theguardian.com

He has advocated that the Eurozone should create a United States of Europe,{{Cite news|title=We eurozoners must create a United State of Europe|url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/apr/23/united-state-of-europe-anglo-american-union|last=Simms|first=Brendan|date=23 April 2013|access-date=23 April 2020|newspaper=The Guardian}} and also that this should continue the traditions of the Holy Roman Empire, appointing an elected Emperor.Brendan Simms, [https://engelsbergideas.com/notebook/charles-iii-why-not-make-him-king-emperor-of-europe/ Charles III — why not make him King-Emperor of Europe?], engelsbergideas.com, 3 October 2022, accessed 5 October 2022

Norman Stone praised Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy as "lively and erudite".[http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/04/reviewed-europe-struggle-supremacy-brendan-simms Reviewed: Europe – the Struggle for Supremacy by Brendan Simms, Norman Stone, New Statesman 25 April 2013] He also praised the book for the focus on Germany and Simms's knowledge of it though he qualifies it by saying Simms is stronger on the 18th century than the 20th century due to the volume of material to be covered in the latter.

Richard J. Evans was critical of the book, saying that Simms had overly favoured observations by A. J. P. Taylor of a Hobbesian view of European history, focusing on periods of strife while neglecting periods of cooperation between European states.{{Cite news|title=Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy by Brendan Simms – review|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/may/23/europe-struggle-supremacy-simms-review|last=Evans|first=Richard|date=23 May 2013|access-date=23 April 2020|newspaper=The Guardian}} Evans described the book as a "one-sided picture", adding that even Simms has to acknowledge that there were periods of cooperation.

Noel Malcolm praised Simms as "a historian of unusual range and ability", saying that "knowing what he wants to say is one of Simms’s strengths".[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/non_fictionreviews/9986890/Europe-by-Brendan-Simms-review.html Europe by Brendan Simms: review, Noel Malcolm, The Telegraph, 15 April 2013] On the whole Malcolm praised the book, though regarding Simms' emphasis on the primacy of foreign policy in European affairs, Malcolm did wonder if there may be counterexamples, such as those where the foreign/domestic distinction is less clear.

British historian Richard J. Evans was critical of Hitler: Only the World Was Enough, arguing that the book makes a number of false claims, such as the claim that Hitler embraced socialism, and concluding that Simms "hasn’t written a biography in any meaningful sense of the word; he has written a tract that instrumentalises the past for present-day political purposes."{{Cite news|title=Hitler by Brendan Simms and Hitler by Peter Longerich review – problematic portraits|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/sep/27/hitler-only-the-world-was-enough-and-hitler-a-life-review|last=Evans|first=Richard|date=27 September 2019|access-date=23 April 2020|newspaper=The Guardian}}

British historian Richard Overy described Hitler: Only the World Was Enough as a "thoroughly thought-provoking and stimulating biography which all historians of the Third Reich will have to take seriously," but also criticized the book for downplaying Hitler's imperial ambitions in Eastern Europe and for giving Hitler too much credit for creating outcomes.{{Cite news|title=Hitler: Only the World Was Enough: its originality and intelligence command attention|url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/hitler-only-the-world-was-enough-its-originality-and-intelligence-command-attention-1.4007528|last=Overy|first=Richard|date=8 September 2019|access-date=2 January 2024|newspaper=The Irish Times}}

{{Incomplete list |date=August 2023}}{{bots|deny=Citation bot}}

• The Struggle for Mastery in Germany, 1779–1850 (Palgrave MacMillan, 1998)
• Unfinest Hour: Britain and the Destruction of Bosnia (Penguin, 2001)
• [https://archive.org/details/threevictoriesan0000simm Three Victories and a Defeat: The Rise and Fall of the First British Empire, 1714–1783] (Penguin, 2007)
• Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy, 1453 to the Present (Allen Lane, 2013)
• {{cite book |title=The Longest Afternoon: The Four Hundred Men Who Decided the Battle of Waterloo |location= |publisher=Allen Lane |date=2014 }}
• Britain's Europe: A Thousand Years of Conflict and Cooperation (Penguin, 2017)
• [https://archive.org/details/donaldtrumpmakin0000lade Donald Trump: The Making of a Worldview] (I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., 2017)
• Hitler: A Global Biography (Basic Books, 2019) {{ISBN|978-0465022373}}
• Hitler's American Gamble: Pearl Harbor and the German March to Global War (Penguin, 2021) {{ISBN|978-0241423509}}
• (with Steven McGregor and David DeVries) The Silver Waterfall: How America Won the War in the Pacific at Midway (Hachette, 2022) {{ISBN|978-1541701373}}

;The longest afternoon

• {{cite journal |author=Heffer, Simon |author-link=Simon Heffer |date=21 November 2014 |title=The unfinished battles of Waterloo |journal=New Statesman |volume=143 |issue=5237 |pages=44–45}}

• European History
• Bosnian War
• British Empire
• T. C. W. Blanning

{{Reflist}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20090907012548/http://www.polis.cam.ac.uk/contacts/staff/simms-brendan.html Biography]
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38zTjKsoYS4 Brady Lecture, London 2018]

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Category:Living people

Category:Alumni of Peterhouse, Cambridge

Category:Fellows of Peterhouse, Cambridge

Category:Fellows of the Royal Historical Society

Category:20th-century Irish historians

Category:21st-century Irish historians

Category:Historians of the Napoleonic Wars

Category:Members of the University of Cambridge faculty of history

Category:Scholars of Trinity College Dublin

Category:Place of birth missing (living people)

Category:1967 births