David Horner

Horner was born in Adelaide, South Australia, on 12 March 1948.[1] He was raised in a military household—his father, Murray Horner, had served in New Guinea during the Second World War. Like Murray, David Horner attended Prince Alfred College.[2] Horner was a prefect and served on numerous committees including the yearbook, debating, cadets, and student christian movement.[3]

later joined the Citizen Military Forces—and joined the Australian Army after completing school in 1966. On graduating from the Royal Military College, Duntroon in 1969, he was commissioned a lieutenant in the Royal Australian Infantry Corps. In 1971, Horner served an eight-month tour in Vietnam as a platoon commander in the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment.[1][4] He was a visiting fellow with the Department of History at the Australian Defence Force Academy from 1985 to 1988, and a member of the directing staff at the Joint Services Staff College in 1988 to 1990.[5] Horner retired from the full-time army in 1991 on gaining a position with the Australian National University (ANU) and transferred to the Australian Army Reserve, with which he served for more than a decade. He was the inaugural commanding officer of the Land Warfare Studies Centre (1998–2002), and retired with the rank of colonel.[6]

Horner has a Diploma of Military Studies from Duntroon, a Master of Arts (Honours) from the University of New South Wales, and graduated with a Doctor of Philosophy from the ANU in 1980. His doctoral thesis, supervised by Robert O'Neill and completed while a serving major in the army, concerned Australian and Allied strategy in the Pacific War and formed the basis for his second book, High Command: Australia and Allied Strategy, 1939–1945 (1982).[7][8]

Horner was appointed to a position at the ANU's Strategic and Defence Studies Centre in 1990.[4] In 1998 he was described as "one of Australia's most respected military historians",[9] and in 1999 was made Professor of Australian Defence History at the ANU's Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies (later the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs);[10] a role he served in until 2014.[7]

In 2004 Horner was appointed the Official Historian and general editor for the Official History of Australian Peacekeeping, Humanitarian and Post-Cold War Operations, a six-volume history covering Australia's involvement in international peacekeeping operations from 1947 to 2006. Horner authored or co-authored the second and third volumes: Australia and the 'New World Order' (2011) and, with John Connor, The Good International Citizen (2014). A team led by Horner also won a tender to write the official history of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO).[4] The three-volume series, which traces the first forty years of ASIO's history from 1949 to 1989, was led by Horner's The Spy Catchers (2014).[11] John Blaxland's The Protest Years followed in 2015,[12] and Blaxland and Rhys Crawley's The Secret Cold War in 2016.[13] The Spy Catchers jointly won the Prime Minister's Literary Award for Australian History, was sole winner of the St Ermin's Hotel Intelligence Book of the Year Award, and was long-listed for the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences Australia Prize for a Book in 2015.[10][11] Horner also undertook a feasibility study in 2012 into what eventually became the Official History of Australian Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Australian Peacekeeping Operations in East Timor.[14]

Horner has written or edited 32 books and more than 75 journal articles, reports and chapters in books.[5] In 2009, he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for his "service to higher education in the area of Australian military history and heritage as a researcher, author and academic."[5] Horner retired from full-time academia in 2014, and was appointed an emeritus professor at the ANU.[10] He was made a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in 2015.[7]