Historian and political commentator. Born in Kelvinside (Glasgow), Stone's mother was a school teacher and his father an RAF pilot, who was on acive service at the time of his birth and was killed the following year. He was educated at Glasgow Academy and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. In 1967, Stone began lecturing at Cambridge in Russian and German History, and his teaching was often inspirational. Yet, the Cambridge department eventually became frustrated with his neglecting his duties, erratic behaviour and heavy drinking, and encouraged him to apply for a Chair in Modern History at Oxford, where he was duly appointed in 1984. However Stone criticised his new university constantly, considered it 'full of Marxists' and complained about the level of his salary. He wrote a regular column for the Sunday Times, authored speeches for Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and advised her on European policy. He was 'retired' from Oxford in 1997 and moved to Turkey, teaching at universities there and writing on Turkish history. He was also a talented linguist, who spoke eight languages.
Stone wrote a number of works on 20th Century European History, including The Eastern Front, 1914 - 1917 (1975) which won him the Wolfson History Prize in 1976. He co-edited The Times Atlas of World History (1989). Other books were rather less-well received by some including Hitler (1980), Europe Transformed 1878 - 1919 (1983) and Hungary: A Short History (2018). Stone was outspoken on policical issues, driven by his right-wing prejudices, and fiercely critical of academic colleagues, several politicians and anyone else he disapproved of, to the point of character assassination. He supported the withdrawal of the UK from the European Union, defended Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and denied the genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire against the Armenians between 1914 and 1916.
Stone died in Budapest (Hungary) and was buried in Ferikoy Protestant Cemetery in Istanbul, perhaps having never fulfilled his early promise as a serious historian but certainly polarising opinion amongst those who knew him. Viktor Orbán, Hungary's controversial right-wing Prime Minister, was a former student of his at Oxford and a friend, who attended Stone's funeral.
