Military History

John Kiszely

General Hastings ‘Pug’ Ismay: Soldier, Statesman, Diplomat
Brasenose College: Amersi Lecture Room 6:00pm Sat 29 Saturday, 29 March 2025 See this event
Simon Mayall

The House of War: The Struggle between Christendom and the Caliphate
Oxford Martin School: Seminar Room 6:00pm Wed 2 Wednesday, 2 April 2025 See this event
Ben Macintyre

The Siege
Sheldonian Theatre 2:00pm Thu 3 Thursday, 3 April 2025 See this event
Ashley Jackson

Oxford’s War 1939-1945
Weston Lecture Theatre 10:00am Sat 5 Saturday, 5 April 2025 See this event
Shannon Monaghan

To Die with Such Men: Frontline Stories from Ukraine’s International Legion
Weston Lecture Theatre 2:00pm Sat 5 Saturday, 5 April 2025 See this event
Helen Fry and Kate Vigurs

Secret Women Spies: The Hidden Stories of Two World Wars
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 4:00pm Sun 6 Sunday, 6 April 2025 See this event

Festival information:

Often as an author, I only occasionally get to meet the public who buy and read my books. The Oxford Literary Festival was a special opportunity for me and certainly one of the highlights of my career – it was an honour I will never forget.

The Oxford Literary Festival is intellectual Viagra.

A stimulating and rewarding on-stage conversation; a lively informed and tolerant audience; privileged access to the great treasures of the Bodleian, and finally, wonderfully interesting dinner companions to help me conclude the best day I have enjoyed at any festival – anywhere.

Every literary festival stays in an author’s mind for slightly individual reasons. I shall remember the Oxford festival for: - the size of the audience: at the top end of the range - their intelligence – this makes a huge difference for a speaker. In the Oxford audience I encountered many experts in the field my book covered and even one of the ambassadors I’d quoted - the beauty and the grace of the place itself – incomparable - the willingness of my hearers to buy books afterwards; I’ve never sold more.

The Oxford festival is the most elegant and atmospheric of literary festivals. It’s a pleasure to both attend and perform there.

The Oxford Literary Festival has in my mind become the leading literary festival of the year. The organisation, the roster of speakers, the ambience and the sheer quality of it all is superb. May it now go from strength to strength each year stretching its ambition more and more. I believe it will.

I loved the whole atmosphere of the Oxford Literary Festival. From breakfast, alongside some of the attendees, who were talking books with each other a mile a minute, to the public event at The Sheldonian where everyone was lively and engaged – I felt I had arrived in a kind of literary heaven.

I came away buzzing and reassured that we still have in this century a wide ranging community fascinated not just by famous authors (I’ve rarely seen so many concentrated in one place) but by challenging ideas and questions.