Bruce Quarrie


Bruce Quarrie was an English writer on wargaming and militaria topics.

Career

Quarrie studied English at Peterhouse College, Cambridge University and graduated in 1968. He became a journalist with the Financial Times and then in 1972 joined Patrick Stephens Limited, a Cambridge specialist publisher, as editor of Airfix Magazine, which PSL produced. He wrote the first of his many books about wargaming in 1974 and in 1986 he became a full-time writer. He wrote over 40 titles, mainly on the Second World War militaria.
Quarrie was an active wargamer. His 1974 book Napoleonic Wargaming brought the hobby to wide attention. Quarrie owned a large miniature army of wargames figures, including the entire Westphalian army of the Napoleonic era.

Criticism

Noting Quarrie's works on the Waffen-SS, the military historian S.P. MacKenzie describes him as a popular historian "partially or wholly seduced by the mystique". He connects Quarrie with the contemporary Waffen-SS historical revisionism, first propounded by HIAG, the Waffen-SS lobby group from the 1950–1990s. Commenting on this contemporary trend, Mackenzie writes that "as older generation of Waffen-SS scribes has died off, a new, post-war cadre of writers has done much to perpetuate the image of the force as a revolutionary European army" and includes Quarrie in this group.

Personal life

Quarrie was married with two daughters and 2 grandchildren and he lived in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire.

Selected works