Callum MacDonald was born in Eaglesham near Glasgow in 1947. He studied History at Edinburgh University, where he achieved a first class honours degree before moving on to New College, Oxford. He received a DPhil from Keble College in 1974.

Author of The Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich published by Birlinn in 2011 and The Lost Battle: Crete 1941 published by The Free Press in 1993, MacDonald's work is a reminder of why we train historians, and of why we study the past.