Alistair Horne Visiting Fellowship

The Alistair Horne Fellowship (now in its 54th year) provides limited financial assistance and membership of St Antony’s College for a candidate prepared to write a significant book of non-fiction for a general readership. First-time authors with projects which fit with the areas covered by St Antony’s Regional Study Centres and Fellows are particularly encouraged to apply. 

The Fellowship carries an expenses allowance of GBP £20,000.  Fellows will be senior members of St Antony’s College, entitled to the use of the College library, regional study centres, and social facilities.  They will also be entitled to free common table meals and 12 High Table meals per term.

Applications for 2024/25

The Fellow for the academic year 2024/25 will be elected early in 2024.  The purpose is to support the writing of a specific book.  Applications should include a covering letter, a brief curriculum vitae not to exceed four pages, a description of the proposed book not to exceed 10 pages, an indication of the author’s plans for the year, and the names and contact details of two referees.  Please note that doctoral students who intend to use the year to complete their theses are not eligible.  Nor do we encourage applicants who merely want to prepare their completed theses for publication rather than producing a book designed to appeal to a general readership. 

St Antony’s College, Oxford

St Antony’s is a postgraduate college that specialises in international studies with particular emphasis on certain regions of the world. Centres of research and study associated with St Antony’s are concerned with Europe, Russia and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Japan, South and Southeast Asia, China, and Latin America.  Fellows of the College are specialists in modern history, literature, politics, economics, sociology, social anthropology, and international relations.  Visiting and Research Fellows, as well as Senior Associate Members, complement the Fellowship.  Students of the College are working for higher degrees at the University.

The corporate designation of the College is “The Warden and Fellows of St Antony’s College in the University of Oxford”.  Its foundation was made possible by the gift of the late Antonin Besse of Aden, a leading merchant of French nationality.  Provisional arrangements for the foundation of the College were made by a decree passed by Congregation on 21 September 1948.  On 30 May 1950 a further decree bestowed on the College the status of a New Foundation.  Its main functions were then defined: “(a) To be a centre of advanced study and research in the fields of modern international history, philosophy, economics and politics; (b) To provide an international centre within the University where graduate students from all over the world can live and work together in close contact with senior members of the University who are specialists in their field; (c) To contribute to the general teaching of the University, especially in the fields of modern history and politics”. In Michaelmas Term 1950 the College opened its doors on the Woodstock Road in a former Anglican Convent built in the 1860s.  In its seventh decade of activity, the body of the College consists of the Warden, the Bursar, some forty Fellows, about 500 students and, at any time, more than 120 Senior Members.

In 1969, Alistair Horne and St Antony’s College endowed an annual Fellowship designed to encourage the completion of works in modern history and biography which combine academic scholarship and a wider public appeal.  In the course of the over fifty years of its existence, the Fellowship has become a notable success. Fellows from different walks of life and parts of the world have found St Antony’s a stimulating environment in which to pursue their work.  The initiators of the Fellowship were especially interested in supporting first books by authors of any age.

Alistair Horne, who died in 2017, was himself a distinguished author.  Among his prize-winning books were: The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916 (1962), A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-62 (1977), The French Army and Politics 1870-1970 (1984), as well as the two volume official biography of Harold Macmillan, published in 1988-9.  Sir Alistair was an Honorary Fellow of St Antony’s College.

Alistair Horne Visiting Fellows 1969-2023
(including titles of published and unpublished works) 

(The titles in italics are books published)

* deceased

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