Catherine Merridale has a First Class degree in history from King's College, Cambridge and a PhD from the University of Birmingham.

Retiring from her academic career, Merridale became a freelance writer in 2014. She has written for the London Review of Books, the New Statesman, The Independent, The Guardian, and the Literary Review. She has also contributed to BBC Radio.The author has spoken out publicly about the issues of publishing books in the field of history. There is much more pressure to publish shorter articles than full-length books, a "great shame" according to Merridale, author of multiple history books.

In an interview with The Independent, Merridale recalls how she became interested in Russia and its past. She began studying Russian in school and first visited the country at the age of 18. She said of her first impression of Russia, "Going from the then ghastly Soviet airport, everything in Moscow was grey and cold and hard. Suddenly in the middle of the city were these golden cupolas and enormous redbrick walls with peculiar swallowtail battlement pattern that didn’t look Russian, but did at the same time."

When she began work on her higher degrees, Merridale spent a year living in Moscow and observing the changes occurring during that time.

In another interview with Waterstones.com, Merridale summarizes her perspective of Russian history, "my message is that we have to take each generation of Russian leaders as they are and not keep assuming that Russia is fated to follow a special path and will always be the same. That there is a Russian destiny."

《伊萬的戰爭》是第一本將普通俄國士兵的經曆置於蘇德戰爭東綫戰場敘事中心的書，書中流露齣的對戰爭的反思擁有重要的意義。書中所謂的伊萬並不是一個具體的人，而是俄國步兵的抽象代錶，但他以一個人的形象在書中呈現，講述瞭蘇軍士兵在二戰諸多慘烈而殘酷的戰事中的親身經曆，不僅撥開瞭蘇聯戰時宣傳的扭麯本質，也將尊嚴還歸於紅軍中最普通士兵本身。 對那數百萬於危難時刻奔赴戰場的紅軍士兵來說，作為勝利果實受益者的我們幾乎無從得知他們來自哪裏，更不用說他們信仰什麼又為何而戰；我們也無從得知，在這樣一場戰爭中除瞭經曆生死，還有什麼彆的什麼考驗，經曆一場這樣的戰爭是如何改變瞭他們的生活，這種非人的暴力是如何塑造瞭他們對於生與死的感悟；我們無從得知當士兵們聚在一起時會談論什麼，分享怎樣的經驗、玩笑與民間智慧；我們也無從得知，他們心中是否有一方隔絕炮火的庇護所，他們所思所夢的是怎樣的傢園，又以一種怎樣的方式愛著為他們所愛的人？ 在這部有野心的、啓示性的作品，凱瑟琳？梅裏戴爾基於對蘇聯及德國有關檔案的研究，特彆是對數百位二戰老兵的采訪，講述瞭這“特殊的一代人”的特殊經曆，嚮我們揭露瞭這群平凡士兵在殘酷戰爭中的生與死。