Geoffrey Roberts


Geoffrey Roberts is a British historian of the Second World War. He specializes in Soviet diplomatic and military history of the Second World War. He is a professor of modern history at University College Cork in Ireland and was formerly head of the School of History at UCC.

Early life and career

Geoffrey Roberts was born in Deptford, south London in 1952. As undergraduate, he studied International Relations at North Staffordshire Polytechnic and was a postgraduate research student at the London School of Economics.
As of the 21st century, Roberts is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society,and teaches History and International Relations at University College Cork, Ireland. Academic awards won by Roberts include a Fulbright Scholarship to Harvard University and a Government of Ireland Senior Research Fellowship. He is a commentator on history and current affairs for British and Irish newspapers and a contributor to the History News Service. He has appeared on radio and TV, and has acted as an historical consultant for documentary series such as Simon Berthon's Warlords, broadcast in 2005.

Criticism

Roberts has come under criticism from Andrew Bacevich, who claims in a review in The National Interest that Roberts is overly sympathetic towards Stalin, taking the word of the Soviet leadership uncritically in his writings, thus presenting a biased view and significantly undermining the usefulness of his scholarship. According to Jonathan Haslam, Roberts relies too heavily on edited Soviet archival documents and goes too far in his conclusions, therefore making his accounts somewhat one sided and by no means telling a full story.

Published work