According to a press and media release by the Oxford University Press, on 6th January 2016 it published an extensive biography of the late Dominic Mintoff (1916-2012), Malta's well-known prime minister from 1955 to 1958 and from 1971 to 1984. The author, Professor Henry Frendo, is a leading University of Malta history don with many books to his credit.
The New Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, in which it appears, is a prestigious multi-volume reference work to which all leading university, newspaper and other libraries in the world subscribe. Other prominent figures in the new edition, all of whom passed away in 2012, include among various others, the historian Eric Hobsbawm, war correspondent Marie Colvin, and Times editor William Rees-Mogg. Other less extensive entries in the New Oxford DNB by Henry Frendo over the years have included Dr Borg Olivier, Sir Paul Boffa, Sir Ugo Mifsud, Lord Strickland and Sir Alexander Ball.
Professor Frendo also critically assesses Mr Mintoff's life contribution in the third edition of his updated Oxford doctoral thesis published as Party Politics in a Fortress Colony (Midsea, 2013). Last December he chaired the Commonwealth History conference 'Visions and Realities' at King's College (The Strand Campus), London. He directs the Institute of Maltese Studies as well as chairs the Malta University Press and the UNESCO National Commission.