A Green History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations (1991), Penguin, ISBN 0-14-017660-8 While other warships circled each other off the Falkland Islands, a British submarine stalked the Argentine light cruiser Brown, Cynthia Stokes (2012). Big History: From the Big Bang to the Present. The New Press. p.xiii. ISBN 978-1595588456. Ponting was born in Bristol, the only child of Charles Ponting, who is thought to have worked in sales, and his wife, Winifred (née Wadham). [3] [4] He was educated at Bristol Grammar School [2] and the University of Reading. [4] Bureaucratic career [ edit ] General Belgrano papers [ edit ] Video interview with Steven Berkoff about the original production of Sink the Belgrano! at the Half Moon Theatre

Kaufman, Gerald (3 April 1985). "The Tribunal". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). HC Deb vol 76 c1242 . Retrieved 1 December 2017. those fabulous Belgrano 'crown jewels', which we were told were matters of the greatest secrecy Thatcher had told the House of Commons the Belgrano was steaming towards the 200-mile exclusion zone imposed by Britain around the Falklands when she was torpedoed, with the loss of 323 of the ship’s company.Troubled history of Official Secrets Act". BBC. 18 November 1998 . Retrieved 8 June 2015. It was hailed as a victory for the jury system. The judge had indicated that the jury should convict him. Steven Berkoff". Contemporary Writers. British Council. Archived from the original on 17 July 2009 . Retrieved 30 September 2008. He later wrote a number of books on British and world history. These included a Green History of the World (1991), which was revised as A New Green History of the World in 2007, and a biography of Winston Churchill (1994) and 1940: Myth and Reality (1990).

Ponting resigned from the civil service on 16 February 1985. In May 1987 he made an extended appearance on the first ever edition of Channel 4's After Dark discussion programme, alongside among others Colin Wallace, T. E. Utley and Peter Hain. Shortly after his resignation, The Observer began to serialise Ponting's book The Right to Know: The Inside Story of the Belgrano Affair. The Conservative government reacted by amending the secrets legislation and by introducing the Official Secrets Act 1989. Before the trial, a jury could take the view that if an action could be seen to be in the public interest, the right of the individual to take that action might be justified. As a result of the 1989 modification, that defence was removed. After the enactment, it was taken that "'public interest' is what the government of the day says it is".The Sun newspaper greeted the sinking of the Belgrano with surely the most infamously memorable headline of its controversial life – GOTCHA – although the text claimed the sinking of another Argentine ship. After the loss of Belgrano the Argentine navy withdrew all units to its nation’s coastal waters, where they remained for the duration of the war, leaving the fight against the Royal Navy to land-based air force and naval aviators. By June 14 the war was over, the British having retaken Stanley and ejected the Argentines from the islands. However, Ponting had drafted two papers stating that the cruiser had altered course and was moving away from the zone. Coventry, Cameron (2019). "CJ Coventry, Clive Ponting's Churchill, Before/Now, 1(1) (2019)". Before/Now. 1 (1): 78–79. doi: 10.17613/4dj5-f938.

Ponting was married four times. In 1969 he married Katherine Hannan. After their divorce in 1973 he married Sally Fletcher, who also worked in the Ministry of Defence. Laura, a teacher, was his third wife. His fourth wife, Diane Johnson, died before him in 2020. [4] Retirement [ edit ] The sinking of ARA General Belgrano rattled the nerves of the Argentine naval groups, which, realizing the dangers and the vulnerabilities of their surface ships against advanced British nuclear submarines, decided to return to port, including the aircraft carrier ARA Veinticinco de Mayo. There would be no more attempts by the Argentine Navy to oppose or threaten the British naval task force which subsequently landed successfully on the Falkland Islands on May 21. A New Green History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations (2007), Penguin, ISBN 0-14-303898-2 Penguin's description of the bookDalyell, Tam (13 June 1985). "Defence Estimates 1985". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). HC Deb vol 80 c1057 . Retrieved 1 December 2017. Ponting... compiled the 'crown jewels' However, ministers demanded his prosecution. It came in the wake the MoD’s embarrassment over the case of Sarah Tisdall, a junior civil servant jailed the year before for sending photocopies of documents concerning the deployment of US cruise missiles in Britain to The Guardian. On August 17, 1985 – 35 years ago next week – Ponting was charged under Section 2 of the 1911 Official Secrets Act. In 1985 Ponting came across the one file about Operation Cauldron—1952 secret biological warfare trials that had led to a trawler being accidentally doused with plague bacteria off the Hebrides—that had not been destroyed, and confidentially told The Observer newspaper about it, [4] leading to a story that July headlined "British germ bomb sprayed trawler". [13]

Berkoff, Steven (2000). Steven Berkoff: Plays One (Reviseded.). Faber and Faber. p.145. ISBN 0-571-20721-9. His historical works have attracted attention from other academics, with scholar Paul Addison writing that "Ponting writes well and the clarity with which he summarises the issues calls to mind a model civil servant briefing his minister. He swoops like a hawk on the damning quotation or the telling statistic." [16] [17] [18] C. J. Coventry reviewed Ponting's biography of Churchill, writing that "Ponting shattered the Churchill illusion for his readers leaving them little to piece together, just marble shards on the floor of his looted temple". [19] Personal life [ edit ] Ponting was convinced he was going to be jailed, so much so that he brought his toothbrush and the sayings of Buddha to court for the verdict. But when it came, which no doubt enraged the judge, he was found innocent. He immediately resigned from the Civil Service and weeks later published his first book, The Right To Know, then joining the politics and international relations department at Swansea University. The events of Ponting's charge and trial were dramatized by Richard Monks on BBC Radio Four in May 2022. [14] Academic career [ edit ]Hannan, Martin (14 November 2018). "Clive Ponting warns of Brexit threat to Scottish Parliament". The National. The play is about British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's decision to torpedo the Argentinian ship General Belgrano, as it was purportedly retreating during the 1982 Falklands War between the United Kingdom and Argentina. [ citation needed] The USS Phoenix was the fifth of the Brooklyn class—a group of light cruisers designed to comply with the restrictions imposed by the London Naval Treaty of 1930. The major navies of the world, prohibited from competing in battleships, had turned their attention to cruisers, which turned out to be both expensive and destabilizing. In an effort to limit competition in heavy cruisers, the new treaty established limits on the number of 8″ gunned cruisers allowed each of the signatories. Britain, which needed light cruisers to patrol the empire, hoped that naval architects would design new cruisers around the 6″ gun, and scale down the size of the ships appropriately. Dalyell had resigned from the shadow Cabinet over the reconquest of the Falklands and was as voluble opponent of Thatcher’s. He had spoken in Parliament against the action and was therefore an obvious destination for the “jewels”. Dalyell realised they were political dynamite. Mr Nott said the past week had been a successful one for British armed forces, but that the overriding aim was a peaceful and lasting settlement.