Leading English author Antony Beevor was educated at Winchester and Sandhurst, where he studied under John Keegan. A regular officer with the 11th Hussars, he left the Army to write. He has published four novels, and eight books of non-fiction. His work has appeared in twenty-nine foreign editions. They include The Spanish Civil War; Inside the British Army; Crete - The Battle and the Resistance, which was awarded a Runciman Prize, and Paris After the Liberation, 1944-1949 (written with his wife Artemis Cooper). He has also contributed to several books including The British Army, Manpower and Society into the Twenty-First Century, edited by Hew Strachan and to Russia - War, Peace & Diplomacy in honour of the late John Erickson.

Richard Overy (b. 1947) was educated at Caius College, Cambridge. He taught at Cambridge from 1972 to 1979 at Queens' College and from 1976-79 as a University Assistant Lecturer.

Bob Low has been a journalist and writer since the age of 17. At 19, he was in Vietnam covering aspects of the war and, after 18 months of it, swore he would never do anything as stupid ever again. Since then, he has earned his living as a writer safely in Scotland, with occasional lapses of judgement taking him to Sarajevo, Romania and Kosovo until common-sense and the concerns of his wife and daughter prevailed.

Leanda de Lisle is the author of 'After Elizabeth'. She was educated at Somerville College, Oxford, where she took an honours degree in Modern History. A successful journalist and writer she has been a columnist for the Spectator, the Guardian, Country Life and the Daily Express, as well as writing for the Daily Mail, the New Statesman and the Sunday Telegraph. She lives in Leicestershire with her husband and three children.