Nicholas Rankin

Nicholas Rankin (born 1950) is a British writer and broadcaster.

Rankin was born in Yorkshire, England, but grew up in Kenya. He was educated at Shrewsbury School and Christ Church, Oxford. He has lived and worked in Bolivia and Catalonia, Spain.

He worked for the BBC World Service for 20 years. He was Chief Producer, Arts, at the BBC World Service, when his eight-part series on ecology and evolution, A Green History of the Planet, won two UN awards.

He currently works as a freelance writer and broadcaster and lives in London with his wife, the novelist Maggie Gee. He has one daughter, Rosa.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2009.

• Dead Man's Chest: Travels after Robert Louis Stevenson. London, Faber and Faber, 1987. ISBN 978-0-571-13808-1
• Telegram from Guernica: The Extraordinary Life of George Steer, War Correspondent. London: Faber and Faber, 2003. ISBN 978-0-571-20563-9
  • Reviewed by Robert Macfarlane, "Write the good fight", in The Observer (6 April 2003)
  • Reviewed by D. J. Taylor, "Their man in Africa", in The Guardian (12 April 2003)
• Churchill's Wizards: The British Genius for Deception 1914-1945. Faber and Faber. 2008. ISBN 978-0-571-22195-0.
  • Reviewed by Andrew Roberts, "Churchill's Wizards by Nicholas Rankin: review", in The Sunday Telegraph (5 November 2008)
  • Reviewed by Michael Bywater, "Churchill's Wizards: the British Genius for Deception, 1914-1945 - Nicholas Rankin", in The Daily Telegraph (17 November 2008)
  • Reviewed by M. R. D. Foot in The Spectator 308/9397 (4 October 2008): 44
• Ian Fleming's Commandos: The Story of 30 Assault Unit in WWII. London: Faber and Faber, 2011. ISBN 978-0-571-25062-2
  • Reviewed by William Boyd, "Ian Fleming's Commandos by Nicholas Rankin – review", in The Guardian (22 October 2011)
• Defending the Rock: How Gibraltar Defeated Hitler. London: Faber and Faber. 2017. ISBN 978-0-571-30770-8.