Barnaby Phillips

Barnaby Phillips; Author, Historian, Journalist, Editor

Barnaby Phillips is an award-winning journalist and non-fiction author. He spent 27 years with the BBC and Al Jazeera English, broadcasting and writing for TV, radio, online, and print, and is still a regular contributor to the BBC, The Times Literary Supplement, Apollo, The Economist, and more. Highlights include elections in the US, India, Germany, Spain, and conflicts in Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Iraq and Ukraine. He’s reported on major stories including Darfur, Liberia and Zimbabwe’s political crisis, and the Iraq War. He produced and presented a Newsnight series and a documentary on South Africa’s AIDs pandemic and covered the end of military rule in Nigeria, the war in Sierra Leone, and upheavals in the Ivory Coast.

His first book, Another Man’s War [Oneworld, 2014], was a Daily Telegraph and National Public Radio [USA] ‘Book of the Year’. His second, Loot: Britain and the Benin Bronzes [Oneworld, 2021], was a Prospect and Art Newspaper ‘Book of the Year’. Loot was positively reviewed globally in the LRB, TLS, The Spectator, FT, The Times, and The Wall Street Journal, and the book made a major impact on the debate around museums, and restitution. In both books, Phillips’ blend of meticulous archival research with contemporary interviews, investigative journalism and reportage was considered a remarkable accomplishment; his reputation as a compelling writer and authority on colonial history, African politics, museums, and restitution continues into his third book due out in 2026.

Phillips is a conservationist and Senior Communications Adviser at the Elephant Protection Initiative (EPI), an alliance of African countries with common policies on elephant conservation where he writes reports, including ghostwritten editorials for leading publications, and speeches for African government ministers, wildlife officials, and UK royalty. He is a regular guest on Times Radio, Al Jazeera and TRT on elephant conservation.

Phillips works as a speaker and panelist including in Edinburgh, Bath, Wimbledon, Dorchester and Gloucester Literary Festivals, Highgate Literary and Scientific Institution, Ake Festival in Nigeria, City of London University, lecturing to visiting American students through the Council of International Educational Exchange.

Phillips grew up in Kenya and Switzerland, studied at Oxford and London Universities, and has spent much of his career in Africa. He has been based as a reporter in Mozambique, Angola, Nigeria, South Africa and Greece. He speaks French and Portuguese (and Greek, not as well as he should). A versatile writer with a particular expertise and interest in history, politics, international affairs, Africa, arts and museums, London, wildlife conservation and sports, especially cricket and football.