Alexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocqueville, usually known as just Tocqueville, was a French aristocrat, diplomat, sociologist, political scientist, political philosopher, and historian. He is b…
Sir Simon Michael Schama is an English historian and television presenter. He specialises in art history, Dutch history, Jewish history, and French history. He is a Professor of History and Art Histor…
Eric Arthur Blair was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition t…
James Joyce was an Irish novelist, poet, and a pivotal figure in 20th-century modernist literature, renowned for his highly experimental approach to language and narrative structure, particularly his …
An avid reader of fantasy literature since age six, when she first made her way through The Lord of the Rings, Naomi Novik is also a history buff with a particular interest in the Napoleonic era and a…
After Napoleon III seized power in 1851, French writer Victor Marie Hugo went into exile and in 1870 returned to France; his novels include The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831) and Les Misérables…
Epictetus was a Greek Stoic philosopher. He was probably born a slave at Hierapolis, Phrygia (present day Pamukkale, Turkey), and lived in Rome until his exile to Nicopolis in northwestern Greece, whe…
Timothy Egan is a Pulitzer Prize winning author of nine books, including THE WORST HARD TIME, which won the National Book Award. His latest book, A PILGRIMAGE TO ETERNITY, is a personal story, a journ…
Dr Andrew Roberts, who was born in 1963, took a first class honours degree in Modern History at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, from where he is an honorary senior scholar and a Doctor of Philoso…
Hilary Mantel was the bestselling author of many novels including Wolf Hall, which won the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. Bring Up the Bodies, Book Two of the…
Caroline Graham is an English playwright, screenwriter and novelist. She attended the Open University, and received a degree in writing for the theatre from the University of Birmingham.
Jeremy D. Popkin received his B.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California, Berkeley and holds an A.M. degree from Harvard University. When he was hired on a one-year contract at the Unive…
Charles John Huffam Dickens (1812-1870) was a writer and social critic who created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. Hi…
Dr Ruth Scurr (born 1971, London) is a British writer, historian and literary critic. She is a Fellow of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge. She was educated at St Bernard's Convent, Slough; Oxford U…
Harry Sidebottom is Lecturer in Ancient History at Merton College, Oxford, and part-time lecturer in Classics and Ancient History at the University of Warwick. He has written for and contributed to ma…
Henrik Johan Ibsen was a major Norwegian playwright largely responsible for the rise of modern realistic drama. He is often referred to as the "father of modern drama." Ibsen is held to be the greates…
Mike Duncan is one of the most popular history podcasters in the world. His award-winning series, The History of Rome, narrated the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, and remains a beloved landmark in…
Robert Roswell Palmer (January 11, 1909 – June 11, 2002), commonly known as R. R. Palmer, was a distinguished American historian at Princeton and Yale universities, who specialized in eighteenth-centu…
Miguel de Cervantes y Cortinas, later Saavedra was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His novel Don Quixote is often considered his magnum opus, as well as the first modern novel.
Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu, generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French social commentator and political thinker who lived during the Enlightenment. H…
Jonathan Wilson is a British sports journalist and author who writes for a number of publications including the Guardian, the Independent and Sports Illustrated. He also appears on the Guardian footba…
Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre was a French lawyer, politician, and one of the best-known and most influential figures of the French Revolution. As a member of the Estates-General, th…
Rachel Lynn Solomon is the New York Times bestselling author of The Ex Talk, Today Tonight Tomorrow, and other romantic comedies for teens and adults. Her books have been translated into more than fif…