Noel Malcolm

Malcolm was born on 26 December 1956.{{cite web|title=MALCOLM, Sir Noel Robert|url=http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whoswho/U43918|website=Who's Who 2016|publisher=Oxford University Press|access-date=26 December 2015|date=November 2015}} He was educated at Eton College as a King's Scholar and studied history at Peterhouse, Cambridge, between 1974 and 1978. He received his PhD in history while he was at Trinity College, Cambridge.{{sfn|Malcolm|2000|p=124}}

Malcolm was a Fellow and college lecturer at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, from 1981 to 1988. He was a political columnist (1987–1991), then the foreign editor (1991–1992) of The Spectator, and a political columnist for the Daily Telegraph (1992–1995). He was jointly awarded the T. E. Utley Prize for Political Journalism in 1991.{{cn|date=March 2025}}

In 1995, he gave up journalism to become a full-time writer.{{sfn|Pan Macmillan|2012}} He was a Visiting Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford, in 1995–1996,{{cn|date=March 2025}} and has been a senior research fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, since 2002.{{sfn|All Soul's College|2012}} He served on the advisory board of the conservative magazine Standpoint.{{sfn|Standpoint|2012}}

Malcolm used to be the chairman of the Bosnian Institute, London,{{sfn|Bosnian Institute|2012}} and president of the Anglo-Albanian Association.{{sfn|Elsie|2010|p=14}}

Malcolm became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL) in 1997 and a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) in 2001. He is a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers.{{cn|date=March 2025}}

He is a Member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Kosovo, and an honorary fellow of both Peterhouse, Cambridge (since 2010), and Trinity College, Cambridge (since 2011).{{sfn|All Soul's College|2012}}

In 2013, he was awarded the British Academy Medal for his book Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan.{{cite web|title=British Academy launches medal for landmark research|url=http://www.britac.ac.uk/news/british-academy-launches-medal-landmark-research|website=British Academy|access-date=30 July 2017|date=14 November 2013}}

Malcolm was knighted in the 2014 New Year Honours for services to scholarship, journalism, and European history.{{sfn|The Times|2013}} In 2016, he was awarded the Presidential Gold Medal of the League of Prizren by the president of Kosovo, Hashim Thaçi.[http://www.president-ksgov.net/en/news/president-thaci-honors-sir-noel-malcolm-with-the-presidential-gold-medal-of-the-league-of-prizren "President Thaçi honors Sir Noel Malcolm with the presidential "Gold Medal of the League of Prizren""]. President of the Republic of Kosovo - Hashim Thaçi. Retrieved 20 February 2018.

Malcolm is the author of

• De Dominis, 1560–1624: Venetian, Anglican, Ecumenist, and Relapsed Heretic (1984)
• George Enescu: His Life and Music ( Toccata Press, 1990), which has been translated into several languages
• Bosnia: A Short History (New York University Press, 1994), which has been translated into several languages
• Origins of English Nonsense (HarperCollins, 1997)
• Kosovo: A Short History (New York University Press, 1998)
• Books on Bosnia: A Critical Bibliography of Works relating to Bosnia-Herzegovina Published Since 1990 in West European Languages (with Quintin Hoare) (Bosnian Institute, 1999)
• Aspects of Hobbes (Oxford University Press, 2002)
• John Pell (1611–1685) and His Correspondence with Sir Charles Cavendish: The Mental World of an Early Modern Mathematician (with Jacqueline Stedall) (Oxford University Press, 2005)
• Agents of Empire: Knights, Corsairs, Jesuits and Spies in the Late Sixteenth-Century Mediterranean World (2015)
• Useful Enemies: Islam and The Ottoman Empire in Western Political Thought, 1450-1750 (2019)
• Rebels, Believers, Survivors: Studies in the History of the Albanians (Oxford University Press, 2020){{Cite book|last=Malcolm|first=Noel|url=https://global.oup.com/academic/product/rebels-believers-survivors-9780198857297?cc=gb&lang=en&#|title=Rebels, Believers, Survivors: Studies in the History of the Albanians|date=2020-07-08|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-885729-7|location=Oxford, New York}}
• Forbidden Desire in Early Modern Europe. Male-Male Sexual Relations, 1400-1750 (Oxford University Press, 2024).[https://global.oup.com/academic/product/forbidden-desire-in-early-modern-europe-9780198886334?cc=fr&lang=en& global.oup.com]

Malcolm edited Reason of State, Propaganda, and the Thirty Years War: An Unknown Translation by Thomas Hobbes (Clarendon Press, 2007), The Correspondence of Thomas Hobbes (1994) and Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan (three volumes, Oxford University Press, 2012), for which he was awarded a British Academy Medal.{{cn|date=March 2025}} He has also contributed more than 40 journal articles or chapters in books since 2002.{{sfn|All Soul's College|2012}}

Malcolm has written many articles for newspapers, magazines and journals. Other than his work for The Spectator, the Daily Telegraph and Standpoint he has had articles published in The Guardian,{{sfn|Malcolm|2008}} The Sunday Telegraph,{{sfn|Malcolm|2001}} the New York Times,{{sfn|Malcolm|1999a}} the Washington Times,{{sfn|Malcolm|1999b}} Time{{sfn|Malcolm|1998a}} and the Daily Mail,{{sfn|Malcolm|1996}} among other publications. He has also contributed book reviews mainly to The Sunday Telegraph.{{sfn|Malcolm|1995}} He has contributed to a number of journals including Foreign Affairs{{sfn|Malcolm|1999c}} and the New York Review of Books.{{sfn|Malcolm|1998c}}{{sfn|Malcolm|2007}}

Malcolm's book Kosovo: A Short History (1998) was the subject of an extended debate in Foreign Affairs. The debate began with a review of the book by Aleksa Djilas, a former Fellow of the Russian Research Center at Harvard University, who wrote that the book was "marred by his sympathies for its ethnic Albanian separatists, anti-Serbian bias, and illusions about the Balkans".{{sfn|Djilas|1998}} Malcolm responded that Djilas had not produced any evidence to counter the evidence in the book, and had instead resorted to belittling both Malcolm and his work, including the use of personal slurs and patronising language.{{sfn|Malcolm|1999c}} The debate continued with Serbian-born Professor Stevan K. Pavlowitch of the University of Southampton asserting that Malcolm's book lacked precision, Melanie McDonagh of the Bosnian Institute claiming that Djilas's review took a "nationalistic approach", and Norman Cigar of Marine Corps University stating that Djilas was trying to create myths to legitimise Serbian actions in Kosovo.{{cite web|title=List of related articles in Foreign Affairs|url=http://connection.ebscohost.com/tag/MALCOLM%252C%2BNoel|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131219112117/http://connection.ebscohost.com/tag/MALCOLM%252C%2BNoel|url-status=dead|archive-date=2013-12-19}}Noel Malcolm, Aleksa Djilas, et al. "[http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/54629/noel-malcolm-aleksa-djilas-et-al/is-kosovo-real-the-battle-over-history-continues Is Kosovo Real? The Battle Over History Continues]," Foreign Affairs (January/February 1999).

Other reviews of Kosovo: A Short History were varied. For example, in English Historical Review, Zbyněk Zeman observed that Malcolm "tries not to take sides",{{sfn|Zeman|1999}} but in American Historical Review, Nicholas J. Miller stated that the book was "conceptually flawed" by Malcolm's insistence on treating Kosovo as "a place on its own; [rather than as] a scrap of irredenta that Serbs and Albanians fight over".{{sfn|Miller|1998}}

Later the same year, Thomas Emmert of the history faculty of Gustavus Adolphus College, Minnesota, reviewed the book in the Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans Online and, while praising aspects of the book, also asserted that it was "shaped by the author's overriding determination to challenge Serbian myths". He claimed that Malcolm was "partisan" and complained that the book made a "transparent attempt to prove that the main Serbian myths are false".{{sfn|Emmert|1999}} Malcolm responded in the same journal in early 2000, asserting that the book challenged both Albanian and Serbian myths about Kosovo, but that there were more Serbian myths about Kosovo than Albanian ones and this explained the greater coverage of Serbian myths in the book. He also observed that Emmert's perspective and work were largely within the framework of Serbian historiography, and that that was the reason for Emmert's assertion that Malcolm was "partisan".{{sfn|Malcolm|2000}} Emmert also criticized Malcolm's opposition to the Serbian claim to Kosovo as the "cradle of civilization", stating that Kosovo did become the center of medieval Serbia and that such feelings among modern Serbs should not be disputed.{{sfn|Emmert|1999}} He also noted the absence of Serbian archives.{{sfn|Emmert|1999}} Likewise, Tim Judah and Misha Glenny criticized Malcolm for not using Serbian sources in the book.{{sfn|Malcolm|1998c}}{{sfn|Judah|1998}} He responded that there were no proper Serbian archives for that period of history, but also noted that he had studied a large number of works by Serbian and Montenegrin authors.{{sfn|Malcolm|1998c}}

A 2006 study by historian Frederick Anscombe looked at issues surrounding scholarship on Kosovo such as Noel Malcolm's book. Anscombe noted that Malcolm offered "a detailed critique of the competing versions of Kosovo's history" and that his work marked a "remarkable reversal" of previous acceptance by western historians of the "Serbian account" regarding the migration of the Serbs (1690) from Kosovo.{{harvnb|Anscombe|2006|p=770}}. "Noel Malcolm, who offers a detailed critique of the competing versions of Kosovo's history ... Here is a remarkable reversal, as Malcolm, like other Western historians, had previously accepted the Serbian account."

Malcolm has been criticized for being "anti-Serbian" and selective with sources, while other critics have concluded that "his arguments are unconvincing". The majority of the documents that Malcolm used were written by adversaries of the Ottoman state or by officials with limited experience of the region. Anscombe notes that Malcolm, like Serbian and Yugoslav historians who have ignored his conclusions, have not considered indigenous evidence such as that from the Ottoman archive when composing national history.{{harvnb|Anscombe|2006|pp=770–771}}. "Malcolm is criticized for being anti-Serbian, and for using his sources as selectively as the Serbs, though the more restrained of his critics only suggest that his arguments are unconvincing. Most of the documents he relies on were written by enemies of the Ottoman Empire, or by officials with limited experience of the Ottoman Balkans. ... Malcolm, like the historians of Serbia and Yugoslavia who ignore his findings, overlooks the most valuable indigenous evidence. Unwillingness to consider Ottoman evidence when constructing national history is exemplified by the Serbian historians..."

In a 2007 work, Serbian historian Dušan T. Bataković claimed that Malcolm's book about Kosovo was "notoriously pro-Albanian".{{harvnb|Bataković|2007|p=13}}: "Notoriously pro-Albanian as regards the Kosovo issue is Noel Malcolm, Kosovo. A Short History (London: Mac- millan, 1998)." Frederick Anscombe has accused Bataković of writing several works in the 1980s and 1990s which advanced a Serbian nationalist perspective regarding Kosovo.{{sfn|Anscombe|2006}}

• Kosovo Myth
• Great Migrations of the Serbs
• Serbian historiography
• My Blood My Compromise

{{reflist|30em}}

• {{Citation

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• {{cite journal

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}}

• {{cite journal

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| title = What Ancient Hatreds?

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• {{cite journal

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| journal = Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans

| volume = 2

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| doi =10.1080/14613190050004871

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• {{cite journal

| last = Miller

| first = Nicholas J.

| title = Noel Malcolm, Kosovo: A Short History, New York:New York University Press. 1998.

| journal = American Historical Review

| volume = 103

| issue = 5 December 1998

| pages = 1648–1649

| year = 1998

| doi = 10.1086/ahr/103.5.1648

}}

• {{cite journal

| last = Zeman

| first = Zbyněk

| title = Kosovo. A Short History by Noel Malcolm

| journal = The English Historical Review

| volume = 114

| issue = 457 June 1999

| pages = 801–802

| year = 1999

| jstor = 580536

| doi = 10.1093/ehr/114.457.801

}}

• {{Citation

| last = Malcolm

| first = Noel

| title = David Owen and His Balkan Bungling

| newspaper = The Sunday Telegraph

| date = 12 November 1995

}}

• {{Citation

| last = Malcolm

| first = Noel

| title = The Grandee and a Question of Genocide

| newspaper = Daily Mail

| date = 6 November 1996

}}

• {{Citation

| last = Malcolm

| first = Noel

| title = The Past Must Not be Prologue

| newspaper = Time

| date = 30 March 1998a

}}

• {{Citation

| last = Judah

| first = Tim

| title = Will There Be a War in Kosovo?

| newspaper = New York Review of Books

| date = 14 May 1998

| volume = 45

| issue = 8

| url = https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1998/05/14/will-there-be-a-war-in-kosovo/

| access-date = 26 July 2020

}}

• {{Citation

| last = Malcolm

| first = Noel

| title = Kosovo's History

| newspaper = New York Review of Books

| date = 16 July 1998c

| volume = 45

| issue = 12

| url = http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1998/jul/16/kosovos-history/

| access-date = 14 December 2012

}}

• {{Citation

| last = Malcolm

| first = Noel

| title = Independence for Kosovo

| newspaper = The New York Times

| date = 9 June 1999a

| url = https://www.nytimes.com/1999/06/09/opinion/independence-for-kosovo.html

| access-date = 14 December 2012

}}

• {{Citation

| last = Malcolm

| first = Noel

| title = Response to Amos Perlmutter's Op-ed 'Who Will Run Kosovo'

| newspaper = Washington Times

| date = 4 May 1999b

}}

• {{Citation

| last = Malcolm

| first = Noel

| title = Milosevic Was Doomed by Press Freedom

| newspaper = The Sunday Telegraph

| date = 1 July 2001

}}

• {{Citation

| last = Malcolm

| first = Noel

| title = The New Montenegro: The State That Was Not a State

| newspaper = New York Review of Books

| date = 6 December 2007

| volume = 54

| issue = 19

| url = http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2007/dec/06/the-new-montenegro-the-state-that-was-not-a-state/

| access-date = 30 January 2015

}}

• {{Citation

| last = Malcolm

| first = Noel

| title = Is Kosovo Serbia? We ask a historian

| newspaper = The Guardian

| date = 26 February 2008

| url = https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/feb/26/kosovo.serbia

| access-date = 14 December 2012

}}

• {{cite web

| author = All Soul's College

| title = Sir Noel Malcolm, MA, PhD, FBA, FRSL

| url = http://www.all-souls.ox.ac.uk/people.php?personid=37

| year = 2012

| access-date = 13 December 2012

| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150421192011/http://www.all-souls.ox.ac.uk/people.php?personid=37

| archive-date = 21 April 2015

| url-status = dead

}}

• {{cite web

| author = Bosnian Institute

| title = Bosnian Institute – Trustees

| url =http://www.bosnia.org.uk/about/staff.cfm

| year = 2012

| access-date = 13 December 2012

}}

• {{cite web

| author = Pan Macmillan

| title = Noel Malcolm

| url = http://www.panmacmillan.com/author/noelmalcolm

| year = 2012

| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150418184042/http://www.panmacmillan.com/author/noelmalcolm

| access-date = 22 December 2019

| archive-date = 18 April 2015

}}

• {{cite web

| author = Standpoint

| title = About Noel Malcolm

| url =https://standpointmag.co.uk/author/noel_malcolm/

| year = 2012

| access-date = 14 December 2012

}}

• {{cite web

|author = The Times

|title=New Year's Honours revealed for higher education

|url=http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/new-years-honours-revealed-for-higher-education/2010125.article

|year=2013

|access-date=30 December 2013

}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Malcolm, Noel}}

Category:1956 births

Category:Living people

Category:People from Surrey

Category:People educated at Eton College

Category:Alumni of Peterhouse, Cambridge

Category:English male journalists

Category:English historians

Category:Historians of the Balkans

Category:Fellows of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge

Category:Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford

Category:Fellows of the British Academy

Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature

Category:Hobbes scholars

Category:Knights Bachelor

Category:English male non-fiction writers

Category:Recipients of the British Academy Medal

Category:Members of the Kosova Academy of Sciences and Arts