Simon Schama





Simon Schama

Author profile


born
in London, The United Kingdom
February 13, 1945

gender
male

genre


About this author

Simon Schama was born in 1945. The son of a textile merchant with Lithuanian and Turkish grandparents, he spent his early years in Leigh-on-Sea in Essex. When his parents moved to London he won a scholarship to Haberdashers’ Aske’s School where his two great loves were English and History. Forced to choose between the two he opted to read history at Christ’s College, Cambridge. Here he was taught by Sir John Plumb whose other students: Linda Colley, Roy Porter and John Brewer are now central to British historical thought. It was Plumb’s influence which instilled in him the importance of narrative and written style in order to gain an audience for history outside academia. One of the hallmarks of Schama’s work is his flair for description: ‘...more


Average rating: 3.94 · 9,703 ratings · 637 reviews · 40 distinct works · Similar authors
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“Historians are left forever chasing shadows, painfully aware of their inability ever to reconstruct a dead world in its completeness however thorough or revealing their documentation. We are doomed to be forever hailing someone who has just gone around the corner and out of earshot.”
Simon Schama, Dead Certainties: Unwarranted Speculations

“Even for the most excitable preacher, there was nothing inherently sinful about a waffle.”
Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age

“I'm helplessly and permanently a Red Sox fan. It was like first love...You never forget. It's special. It's the first time I saw a ballpark. I'd thought nothing would ever replace cricket. Wow! Fenway Park at 7 o'clock in the evening. Oh, just, magic beyond magic: never got over that”
Simon Schama

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