Ben Macintyre

Benedict Richard Pierce Macintyre (born 25 December 1963) is a British author, reviewer and columnist for The Times newspaper. His columns range from current affairs to historical controversies. He has written some 15 books, and received numerous awards for both fiction and non-fiction works.

Macintyre was born on 25 December 1963, in Oxford, the elder son of Angus Donald Macintyre (d. 1994), a fellow and tutor in Modern History at Magdalen College, Oxford, and Joanna, daughter of Sir Richard Musgrave Harvey, 2nd Baronet and a descendant of Berkeley Paget. His paternal grandmother was a descendant of James Netterville, 7th Viscount Netterville. Angus Macintyre had been elected principal of Hertford College, Oxford before his death in a car accident, author of the first scholarly work on the Irish nationalist Daniel O'Connell, general editor of the Oxford Historical Monographs series from 1971 to 1979, editor of The English Historical Review from 1978 to 1986, and Chairman of the Governors of Magdalen College School from 1987 to 1990.

Macintyre was educated at Abingdon School and St John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a degree in history in 1985.

Macintyre is the author of a book on the gentleman criminal Adam Worth, The Napoleon of Crime: The Life and Times of Adam Worth, Master Thief.

He also wrote The Man Who Would Be King: The First American in Afghanistan, about Josiah Harlan. This was also published as Josiah the Great: The True Story of the Man who Would be King. Harlan is one of the candidates presumed to be the basis for Rudyard Kipling's short story The Man Who Would Be King.

He is the author of a book on Eddie Chapman, a double agent of Germany and Britain during the World War II, Agent Zigzag: The True Wartime Story of Eddie Chapman: Lover, Betrayer, Hero, Spy.

In 2008, Macintyre wrote an illustrated account of Ian Fleming, creator of the fictional spy James Bond, to accompany the For Your Eyes Only, Ian Fleming and James Bond exhibition at London's Imperial War Museum, which was part of the Fleming Centenary celebrations.

Macintyre's 2010 book Operation Mincemeat first brought Hester Leggatt's possible contributions to Operation Mincemeat to mainstream attention, though the book misspelled her name as "Leggett".