Laurence Rees’s latest book, ‘The Holocaust – a new history’ was published in the UK in January 2017 to critical acclaim. The Times said it was ‘an exemplary account of how the greatest crime in history came about’ and was ‘excellently written’. The Guardian said it was a ‘fine book’ and that Rees was ‘a gifted educator, who can tell a complex story with compassion and clarity, without sacrificing all nuances.’ The Daily Mail called it ‘groundbreaking’, the Spectator said it was Rees’s ‘masterwork’, and the Daily Telegraph concluded that ‘this compelling study’ was ‘the finest single volume account of the Holocaust’. The book was also a Sunday Times top ten bestseller.

A former Head of BBC TV History Programmes, Rees has written six previous books on the Nazis and the Second World War, including ‘The Nazis: A Warning from History’, ‘World War Two: Behind Closed Doors’ and ‘The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler’, as well as writing, producing and directing the accompanying documentary TV series.  Rees is also the author of the award-winning ‘Auschwitz: The Nazis, and the ‘Final Solution’’ - the world’s bestselling book on the history of the camp.

Educated at Oxford University, for several years he was a visiting senior fellow in the International History Department at the London School of Economics. He holds honorary doctorates from the University of Sheffield and the Open University. His many awards include a British Book Award, a BAFTA, a George Foster Peabody Award, a Broadcasting Press Guild Award, a Grierson Award, a Broadcast Award, two International Documentary Awards and two Emmys.