Editing Robert Fisk (section)

==Early life and education==
Fisk was an only child, born in [[Maidstone]], Kent,<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia|title=Robert Fisk {{!}} Biography & Facts|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Robert-Fisk|access-date=23 November 2020|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia Britannica}}</ref> to William and Peggy Fisk. His father was Borough Treasurer at Maidstone Corporation and had fought in the [[World War I|First World War]].<ref name="ObsCooke">{{cite news| url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/2008/apr/13/middleeastthemedia.lebanon | location=London | work=The Observer | first=Rachel | last=Cooke | title=Man of war | date=13 April 2008}}</ref> His mother was an amateur painter who in later years became a Maidstone magistrate.<ref name=nyt-obit>{{Cite news|last=Haberman|first=Clyde|date=3 November 2020|title=Robert Fisk, Intrepid War Correspondent, Dies at 74|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/03/world/middleeast/robert-fisk-dead.html|access-date=4 November 2020|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> At the end of the war Bill Fisk was punished for disobeying an order to execute another soldier; his son said, "My father's refusal to kill another man was the only thing he did in his life which I would also have done." Though his father said little about his part in the war, it held a fascination for his son. After his father's death, he discovered that he had been the scribe of his battalion's war diaries from August 1918.<ref>{{cite book |last=Fisk |first=Robert |title=The Great War for Civilization: The Conquest of the Middle East |publisher=[[Harper Perennial]] |year=2006 |location=London |pages=362–365, 369–370, 385–386 |isbn=978-1-84115-008-6}}</ref>

Fisk was educated at [[Yardley Court]], a preparatory school,<ref>{{cite news|last=Fisk|first=Robert|url= https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/deadly-skies-the-bloody-truth-about-the-battle-of-britain-70-years-on-2015062.html |title=Deadly skies: The bloody truth about the Battle of Britain 70 years on |work=The Independent |location =London |access-date=24 October 2011|date=3 July 2010}}</ref>  then at [[Sutton Valence School]] and [[Lancaster University]],<ref>{{Cite journal|url=http://domino.lancs.ac.uk/Info/lunews.nsf/I/9273D1AFBDC1A6B38025721B0049FA77 |title=Robert Fisk lecture |journal=LU News |publisher=Lancaster University |date=November 2006 |access-date=14 October 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081210130331/http://domino.lancs.ac.uk/Info/lunews.nsf/I/9273D1AFBDC1A6B38025721B0049FA77 |archive-date=10 December 2008 }}</ref> where he undertook his B.A. in Latin and Linguistics<ref>{{Cite web|last=(UCTV)|first=University of California Television|date=February 2007|title=Conversations with History: Robert Fisk|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjoGLA4mVxU?t=610| archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/jjoGLA4mVxU| archive-date=2021-12-11 | url-status=live|access-date=10 November 2020|website=[[YouTube]]}}{{cbignore}}</ref> and contributed to the student magazine ''[https://scan.lancastersu.co.uk/2013/05/27/the-history-of-carolynne/ John O'Gauntlet]''. He gained a PhD in [[political science]] from [[Trinity College Dublin]] in 1983;<ref name=PSPG>{{cite web|url=http://www.tcd.ie/Political_Science/postgraduate/phdstudentspre1995.php |title=Former postgraduate students |publisher=[[Trinity College, Dublin]] |access-date=26 July 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080928001154/http://www.tcd.ie/Political_Science/postgraduate/phdstudentspre1995.php |archive-date=28 September 2008 }}</ref> the title of his doctoral thesis was "A Condition of Limited Warfare: [[Éire]]'s Neutrality and the Relationship between [[Irish government|Dublin]], [[Executive Committee of the Privy Council of Northern Ireland|Belfast]] and [[British government|London]], 1939–1945".<ref name=PSPG />  It was published as ''In Time of War: Ireland, Ulster and the Price of Neutrality 1939-1945'' (London: André Deutsch, 1983; reprinted in Dublin by Gill & MacMillan, 1996). Reviewer F. I. Magee in 1984 stated: "This book presents a detailed and definitive account of Anglo-Irish relations during the Second World War....Fisk's excellent book highlights the ambivalence in relations between Britain, the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland and goes a long way towards explaining why the current situation is so intractable."<ref>F. I. Magee, "In Time Of War" '' Political Studies'' (1984) 32#4 p. 670.</ref>