Robert Lyman

Robert Lyman was born in New Zealand and educated at Scotch College, Melbourne, Australia.  He was an officer in the British Army for twenty years, being commissioned into the Light Infantry from the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, in April 1982.  He has a First-Class Honours degree in History from the University of York and Master’s degrees in Strategic Studies (University College of Wales, Aberystwyth), War Studies (King’s College, London) and Military Studies (Cranfield).   He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 2009.  A critically acclaimed historian, his interest to date has been the experience of both warfare and of military command during the Second World War, producing narrative studies that explore campaigns in the Middle East, Far East and North Africa.

His Under A Darkening Sky - Americans at War, 1939-1941 was published by Pegasus in the US in 2018.  A War of Empires on the Japanese invasion of South-East Asia was published by Osprey / Bloomsbury in 2021 and praised by James Holland as 'a superb book'.

Co-written with General Lord Dannatt, his acclaimed Victory to Defeat, on why the British Army was catastrophically unprepared for the Second World War and the lessons we must learn, was published by Bloomsbury / Osprey in 2023.

Co-authored with Richard Dannatt, his His Korea – A War Without End will be published by Bloomsbury / Osprey in 2023.