Sir Roderick Beaton

Roderick Beaton was born and grew up in Edinburgh. After a first degree in English Literature from Cambridge, he specialised in Modern Greek studies, which became the subject of a long and distinguished academic career. He is the author of many books about Greece and Greek culture and, most recently, Europe: A New History (Allen Lane/Penguin, 2026), which re-examines the history of Europe in the light of the geopolitical upheavals of the 2020s.

For thirty years until his retirement Roderick held the Koraes Chair of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language and Literature at King’s College London, and is now Emeritus. He is also Chair of the British School at Athens, one of the British International Research Institutes (BIRI) supported by the British Academy.

Roderick is the author of several books of non-fiction, one novel, and several translations of fiction and poetry. Among his books, Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation (Allen Lane/Penguin, 2019) was shortlisted for the Cundill History Prize and Byron’s War: Romantic Rebellion, Greek Revolution (CUP, 2013) for the Duff Cooper Prize. His other books include An Introduction to Modern Greek Literature (OUP, 1999) and George Seferis: Waiting for the Angel. A Biography (YUP, 2003). All four were winners of the prestigious Runciman Award for best book on Greece and the Hellenic world. In Greece his work has won the Anagnostis, Daedalus, Epilogos and Vardinoyannis prizes and a Byron Medal awarded by the Academy of Athens. His most recent book before Europe was The Greeks: A Global History (Faber, 2021), also published by Basic Books in the USA and translated into 8 languages, becoming a bestseller in Greek.

Roderick is a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), a Fellow of King’s College (FKC), and an Honorary Fellow of his Cambridge college, Peterhouse. In Greece, he was decorated as Commander of the Order of Honour of the Hellenic Republic by President Prokopios Pavlopoulos in 2019 and was granted honorary citizenship in 2023; in the same year he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Patras. Back in the UK, in February 2025 he was knighted by King Charles III in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace for ‘services to history and UK/Greek relations’, reflecting a long and distinguished academic career and books which have helped build strong, durable links between the UK and Greece.

Photo courtesy of Robert Przybysz / Faculty of "Artes Liberales”, University of Warsaw