Professor Malcolm Deas (1941-2023)

Professor Malcolm Deas graduated from New College with a First in modern History in 1962, and was a Fellow of All Souls College from 1962-1966. He was one of the original staff of the Latin American Centre, and was a Fellow of St Antony’s College and University Lecturer in the Government and Politics of Latin America from 1966 until his retirement in 2008.

His own research has been chiefly on the nineteenth and twentieth century history of Colombia, where he first spent two years in 1964 and 1965, and where he has been a frequent visitor and resident since. He has written on caciquismo, the history of taxation, civil wars, coffee, insecurity and its economic consequences, the interaction of local and national politics, the interpretation of violence and many other themes. He has at times contributed to The New Statesman, The Listener, The Spectator, The London Review of Books and The Times, for which last he wrote the leaders on Latin America for five years from the end of the Falklands War.

He also gave evidence to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee on the origins of the dispute. He served for a decade as Managing Editor of the Cambridge University Press monographs on Latin America, during which time the majority of the titles in that series appeared. (Ten years of dealing with authors he felt was enough.) From 1990 to 1994 he was an advisor in Colombia to President César Gaviria’s Consejería de Seguridad y Defensa, which worked to design policies to reduce Colombia’s high levels of violence. For this he was awarded Colombia’s Cruz de Boyacá, and an O.B.E. .

He was also a member of the Orden Andrés Bello (Venezuela) and the Orden de Mérito (Ecuador). He has an Honorary Doctorate from the Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá. He was the University’s Senior Proctor, 1986-1987, and is an Emeritus Fellow of St Antony’s College. His latest book Las fuerzas del orden, Taurus-Penguin Random House, Bogota, 2017,  contains several chapters on Colombian military history.

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The Global Security Programme would like to acknowledge the great loss of our recently departed friend, colleague, and CONPEACE advisory board member, Malcolm Deas. Malcolm was a great supporter of our work and an inspiration to us all. We offer our sincerest condolences to his family during this difficult time.