Dr Steve Tibble
Steve Tibble is a graduate of Cambridge and London Universities, and is a research associate at Royal Holloway College, University of London. He is one of the foremost academics currently working in the field of the crusades, and is the author of the warfare and strategy chapters in both 'The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades' and 'The Cambridge History of the Crusades' (2023).
His recent publications have been critically acclaimed and include 'The Crusader Armies' (Yale, 2018) and 'The Crusader Strategy' (Yale, 2020, short-listed for the Duke of Wellington's Military History Prize). His latest book, 'Templars - The Knights of Britain', is due out in the summer of 2023.
Academia is, however, something of a homecoming for Steve.
Since finishing his PhD and writing a book for Oxford (1989) on the political tensions within the crusader states, he has worked on strategy development in the communications industry, primarily within financial markets. He was Communications Director of one of Europe’s leading private equity companies for over a decade, but also worked on many of the UK’s largest privatisations, developed corporate communications and investor relations strategies for many FTSE100 companies, and designed communications programmes for several governments including those of Germany, Dubai, Brazil, Finland and Taiwan.
After private equity he said farewell to the financial world and took up an honorary role at the University of London (Royal Holloway). He now spends the majority of his time on academic writing, specialising in the period that stole his heart as a young student: the crusades.
Having had what is, in effect, two very different careers has meant that Steve has spent much of his time focusing on how to convey complex ideas to non-specialist audiences. This is reflected in his current work as an historian - he takes some of the more far-reaching implications of current academic research in medieval history, and synthesises them in a way which is accessible to a broader audience for the first time.
Steve still keeps one foot in the door of his communications career. He is a member of the advisory board of JPES Partners, a leading specialist financial PR firm, and is on the Advisory Board of the Humanities, Royal Holloway College, University of London.
