Susan Williams (historian)

Susan Williams
Occupation(s)Historian and author
Employer(s)Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London
AwardsWindham Campbell Prize 2023

Susan Williams is a historian and author based in London. She has written on influential women and the history of British monarchs, though known for her more recent works on how Britain, the United States, and the rest of the Western World influenced or interfered in modern 20th century autonomy in African countries.

Career

Williams is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London.[1]

Her publications include The People's King: The True Story of the Abdication, a book about the abdication of Edward VIII, published in 2003;[2] and Colour Bar: The Triumph of Seretse Khama and His Nation, published in 2006,[3] on which the 2016 film A United Kingdom is based.[4][5]

Her book Who Killed Hammarskjold? (2011),[6][1][7] about the 1961 death of the then-Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjöld, triggered a new UN investigation in 2015.[citation needed]

In Spies in the Congo: America's Atomic Mission in World War II she tells an intricate tale regarding the formation of special unit of the US Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a forerunner of the CIA, to purchase and secretly extract all the uranium from Shinkolobwe in Katanga Province, Belgian Congo. The purpose of this was to obtain the radioactive material and keep it out of the hands of the Axis powers. The uranium was used in the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.[citation needed]

Her latest book is White Malice: The CIA and the Covert Recolonization of Africa, published in 2021.[8][9]

Awards

She was the recipient of a 2023 Windham–Campbell Literature Prize for non-fiction.[10]

Books

  • —— (2000). Ladies of Influence: Women of the Elite in Interwar Britain. London: Allen Lane. ISBN 9780713992618.
  • —— (2003). The People's King: The True Story of the Abdication. London: Allen Lane. ISBN 9780713995732.α
  • —— (2006). Colour Bar: The Triumph of Seretse Khama and His Nation. London: Allen Lane. ISBN 9780713998115.β
  • —— (2011). Who Killed Hammarskjöld? The UN, the Cold War, and White Supremacy in Africa. London: Hurst. ISBN 9781849041584.
  • —— (2016). Spies in the Congo: America's Atomic Mission in World War II. PublicAffairs. ISBN 9781610396547.
  • —— (2021). White Malice: The CIA and the Covert Recolonization of Africa. PublicAffairs. ISBN 9781541768291.

Notes

^α on the abdication of Edward VIII
^β on the founding president of Botswana

References

  1. ^ a b "Susan Williams". Curtis Brown. Retrieved 28 January 2018.
  2. ^ Roberts, Andrew (24 August 2003). "Did the people want Wallis?". The Sunday Telegraph. Retrieved 28 January 2018.
  3. ^ Benn, Melissa (19 August 2006). "The bride wore black". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 January 2018.
  4. ^ "Dr Susan Williams". School of Advanced Study, University of London. Retrieved 28 January 2018.
  5. ^ "Susan Williams". Penguin Books. Retrieved 28 January 2018.
  6. ^ Graham-Harrison, Emma; Rocksen, Andreas; Brügger, Mads (12 January 2019). "Man accused of shooting down UN chief: 'Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to…'". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 January 2019.
  7. ^ Bordeaux, Michael (19 May 2017). "Who Killed Hammarskjöld? by Susan Williams". Church Times. Retrieved 28 January 2018.
  8. ^ "White Malice". Kirkus. Retrieved 11 August 2021.
  9. ^ Norton-Taylor, Richard (26 October 2021). "Did Britain help murder an African leader and U.N. secretary general?". Declassified UK. Retrieved 17 January 2023.
  10. ^ "2023 Prize Recipients". Windham Campbell Prizes 2023. Windham Campbell Prizes. Retrieved 21 April 2023.
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