Martin van Creveld

Martin van Creveld was born in 1946 in Rotterdam

Van Creveld was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, in 1946 to a Jewish family. His parents, Leon and Margaret, evaded the Gestapo during World War II. The family immigrated to Israel in 1950, and he grew up in Ramat Gan.

He studied history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem from 1964 to 1969 and earned an M.A. He then completed a PhD at the London School of Economics from 1969 to 1971. His thesis on Hitler's strategy in the Balkans became a book in 1973.

He began teaching at the Hebrew University in 1971 and became a professor in 1988. He retired from there in 2007 and taught in the Security Studies Program at Tel Aviv University. In 2011 he left Trier University in Germany, where he was a visiting professor, after student protests over his remarks about women.

His books include Supplying War, Command in War, The Transformation of War and The Sword and the Olive. The Transformation of War argued that the state was losing its central role in war and challenged ideas of Clausewitz. Some of his books were required reading for United States Army officers, and scholars of Clausewitz criticized his reading of that thinker.

He has been married twice and has 3 children. He lives in Mevaseret Zion.