Correlli Barnett is world-renowned historian whose books have been translated into many languages. He first achieved fame in 1960 with THE DESERT GENERALS a controversial study of the 1940-43 North African campaign, and still in print. His subsequent work has ranged from the military and naval history to his acclaimed 'Pride and Fall' sequence on Britain as an industrial and imperial power in the world in the twentieth century.

He was co-author of the ground-breaking 1964 BBC television series THE GREAT WAR (to be re-screened in 2003), for which he received the 1964 Screenwriters' Guild Award for the Best Documentary Script.

Correlli Barnett's other literary awards include the Royal Society of Literature Heinemann) Award in 1972 for BRITAIN AND AND HER ARMY, and the 1991 Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Award for ENGAGE THE ENEMY MORE CLOSELY: THE ROYAL NAVY IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR.

For his services to military history, he was awarded the Chesney Gold medal of the Royal United Services Insituted for Defence Studies in 1991, an honorary Doctorate of Science by Cranfield University in 1993, and appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1997.

Correlli Barnett was born on 28 June 1927, and educated at Trinity School, Croydon, and Exeter College, Oxford (Modern History). He is a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, and a former Keeper o the Churchill Archives Centre. He is married, with two daughters and six grandchildren, and lives in Norfolk, England.

THE VERDICT OF PEACE grippingly evokes the dying embers of Britain's twentieth-century influence. Controversial and original, this is the definitive study of Britain's decline as a great industrial nation.

Between the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 and the Suez debacle of 1956, Great Britain squandered every opportunity to re-invent herself as industrial nation. While Japan and Germany progressed and evolved, Britain stagnated. The new technologies passed her by, leaving other countries to dominate market share. All this while industry stalled under prolonged industrial action and a chronic shortage of skilled workers.

Correlli Barnett examines how British leaders and public opinion became beguiled by Britain's immediate past; as a victor in The Second World War, as an imperial power and by the ideals passed down from the Victorian age.

This is a fitting conclusion to the remarkable THE PRIDE AND FALL sequence.