Mark Urban Audiobooks

The former Newsnight diplomatic editor turns to armoured warfare in Tank

1 audiobook reviewed

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Who is Mark Urban?

Mark Urban (born 1961) is a British journalist, historian and broadcaster, best known to television audiences from BBC Two’s Newsnight, where he served as Diplomatic Editor and occasional presenter until May 2024. He now writes and comments for The Sunday Times, with defence and foreign affairs as his specialist ground.

That pairing of trades – reporter and historian – defines him. Urban belongs to the tradition of defence correspondents who bring a historian’s depth to the day’s events and a reporter’s clarity to the past, and his authority on military matters was built over a long career of covering them at close quarters. It is a combination publishing values for good reason: it produces books that are both reliable and readable.

Mark Urban in audiobooks

Tank is the Urban title in our catalogue, and the subject sits squarely in his wheelhouse: military history from a writer who has spent his professional life on defence. Single-subject histories make excellent listening when the author can hold the big story and the concrete detail in the same hand, and Urban’s double identity – journalist and historian – promises exactly that, delivered at a correspondent’s pace. For UK listeners with an appetite for military history done seriously but accessibly, this is a natural addition to the queue, from a name many will already trust from the screen.