{"id":1613,"date":"2021-03-05T15:53:18","date_gmt":"2021-03-05T15:53:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/?p=1613"},"modified":"2021-03-19T15:09:50","modified_gmt":"2021-03-19T15:09:50","slug":"dr-philip-boobbyer-publishes-new-book-on-the-life-and-world-of-francis-rodd-lord-rennell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/2021\/03\/05\/dr-philip-boobbyer-publishes-new-book-on-the-life-and-world-of-francis-rodd-lord-rennell\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr Philip Boobbyer publishes new book on Lord Rennell"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Reader at the School of History, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kent.ac.uk\/history\/people\/385\/boobbyer-philip\">Dr Philip Boobbye<\/a>r, has published his new book, <a href=\"https:\/\/anthempress.com\/the-life-and-world-of-francis-rodd-lord-rennell-1895-1978-hb\"><em>The Life and World of Francis Rodd, Lord Rennell (1895-1978): Geography, Money and War <\/em><\/a>(Anthem Press, 2021). We caught up with Dr Boobbyer to find out more about his book and how the project came about.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How and why did this book come about?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There is a personal dimension to this topic &#8212; Francis Rodd\/ Lord Rennell was my grandfather. I have long known that he was a possible subject for some research, but it has only been in recent years that I have gone into his life in more detail. The book follows an article I wrote on him published a couple of years in the journal <a href=\"https:\/\/kar.kent.ac.uk\/61987\/\"><em>War in History<\/em><\/a>. I have an interest in biography, having already written two books of a biographical nature. This book was enhanced by the fact that there are papers on Francis Rodd\/ Lord Rennell at the Bodleian Library and the Royal Geographical Society, but I also had access to family letters of a more personal nature.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What is it about Francis Rodd that peaked your interest? What makes his story worth telling?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Rodd\/Rennell was important and interesting for a number of reasons. Here are some:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>He ran the first military government in Allied-occupied Europe in World War II (Sicily and Southern Italy, 1943)<\/li>\n<li>He made a robust stand against the Mafia in Sicily, even while the Mafia used the cover of Allied control to re-establish itself at that time<\/li>\n<li>He was well-known as a geographer for his journeys to the south-central Sahara in the 1920s, and for being President of the Royal Geographical Society (1945-48)<\/li>\n<li>Working for Military Intelligence (Research), he set up an intelligence-gathering network in Nigeria in 1940<\/li>\n<li>His ideas had an early influence on the Long Range Desert Group, which was active in guerilla operations in North Africa during the Second World War.<\/li>\n<li>He was the Ministry of Economic Warfare&#8217;s chief negotiator with Italy (1939-40)<\/li>\n<li>His sister-in-law was society novelist, Nancy Mitford<\/li>\n<li>He was a friend of Lawrence of Arabia<\/li>\n<li>Through his work in banking he had conversations with Benito Mussolini (1929) and he also had a number of meetings with Charles de Gaulle (1940).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>The Life and World of Francis Rodd, Lord Rennell (1895-1978): Geography, Money and War <\/em>is Dr Philip Boobbyer&#8217;s third book of a biographical nature, with the first being <em>S. L. Frank: The Life and Work of a Russian Philosopher 1877-1950<\/em> (1995), and the second being<em>, The Spiritual Vision of Frank Buchman<\/em> (2013). To find out more about Dr Boobbyer, you can <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kent.ac.uk\/history\/people\/385\/boobbyer-philip\">visit his staff profile<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/men\/thinking-man\/lord-rennell-unsung-british-hero-took-mafia\/\">Telegraph\u2019s review<\/a> of Dr Philip Boobbyer, book, <em>The Life and World of Francis Rodd, Lord Rennell (1895-1978): Geography, Money and War<\/em> .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reader at the School of History, Dr Philip Boobbyer, has published his new book, The Life and World of Francis Rodd, Lord Rennell (1895-1978): Geography, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/2021\/03\/05\/dr-philip-boobbyer-publishes-new-book-on-the-life-and-world-of-francis-rodd-lord-rennell\/\">Read&nbsp;more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40592,"featured_media":1614,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16742,124],"tags":[173106,187358],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1613"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40592"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1613"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1634,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1613\/revisions\/1634"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}