Education
He was educated at Bedford Modern School and studied history at Christ"s College, Cambridge.
He was educated at Bedford Modern School and studied history at Christ"s College, Cambridge.
Russell Barnes worked as a researcher on cult youth programmes A Stab in the Dark and The Word, and also Channel 4’s television review show, Right to Reply. In 2002, he directed Empire, a revisionist account of British colonial history presented by the Harvard historian Niall Ferguson. A sequel about United States power, American Colossus, followed in 2004.
In 2004 Russell Barnes produced Churchill"s Forgotten Years, written and presented by the Cambridge University historian David Reynolds.
In 2011, they produced World War Two: 1941 and the Manitoba of Steel, a new profile of Josef Stalin, which was shortlisted in the Best Historical Documentary category of the 2012 Grierson Awards. Long Shadow, which explored the legacy and meaning of the First World War as part of the British Broadcasting Corporation"s centenary season of programming, was broadcast on BBC2 in 2014.
The series, which explored the legacy and meaning of the First World War as part of the British Broadcasting Corporation"s centenary season of programming, received widespread and favourable press coverage and reviews. Russell Barnes started working with the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in 2005, directing the series The Root of All Evil? Russell Barnes has produced several films that explore the history of communications technology including, in 2000, How the Victorians Wired the World and Hackers in Wonderland.
In 2009 he was series producer of The Virtual Revolution, a BBC2 history of the World Wide Web presented by Aleks Krotoski.
In 2010 Barnes founded the independent production company ClearStory Limited with Molly Milton, where he has produced projects including Richard Dawkins series Sex, Death and the Meaning of Life, the award-winning observational documentary Gypsy Blood and the controversial studio format Sex Box for Channel 4. Russell Barnes is active in Directors United Kingdom, sitting on the organisation"s distribution committee.
Barnes and Reynolds went on to collaborate on a series of further feature-length history documentaries for the British Broadcasting Corporation, including The Improbable Mr Attlee, Summits and Armistice, which charted the final month of the First World War from the German perspective and received special commendation from the jury at the 2009 Grierson Awards ceremony. Barnes and Dawkins" next series The Genius of Charles Darwin, marking the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species in 2008, won Best Documentary series at the 2009 Broadcast Awards. The series won the 2010 International Digital Emmy Award and the 2010 British Academy of Film and Television Arts New Media Award.
