Dominic Sandbrook

Dominic Sandbrook (born October 1974)^[1] is a British historian. Born in Bridgnorth, Shropshire, he was educated at Malvern College^{[2] [3]} and studied at Balliol College, Oxford, the University of St Andrews and Jesus College, Cambridge.

Previously a lecturer in history at the University of Sheffield, he has been a senior fellow of the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford University and a member of its history faculty, and is now a freelance writer and newspaper columnist. In 2007 he was named one of Waterstone's 25 Authors for the Future.

Sandbrook's first book, a biography of the American politician and presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy, proved extremely controversial on its release in the United States in 2004. The book was described by Louis Menand in The New Yorker as "intelligent and well written" but "unremittingly unsympathetic" toward its subject. McCarthy himself called the book "almost libellous".

In 2005, Sandbrook published Never Had It So Good, a history of Britain from the Suez Crisis to the Beatles, 1956–1963. It was described as a "rich treasure chest of a book" by Anthony Howard in the Daily Telegraph, who wrote of his "respect for the sweep and scope of the author's knowledge",^[4] while Nick Cohen wrote in the Observer that it was "a tribute to Sandbrook's literary skill that his scholarship is never oppressive. Alternately delightful and enlightening, he has produced a book which must have been an enormous labour to write but is a treat to read".^[5]

The sequel, White Heat, covering the years 1964–1970 and the rise and fall of Harold Wilson's Labour government, was published in August 2006. "Sandbrook's book could hardly be more impressive in its scope," wrote Leo McKinstry in The Times. "He writes with authority and an eye for telling detail.".^[6] In November 2009, it was named by the Telegraph as "one of the books that defined the Noughties".^[7]

Unlike some previous historians of the 1960s, Sandbrook argues that the period was marked by strong conservatism and conformity. His books attempt to debunk what he sees as myths associated with the period, from the sexual revolution to student protest, and he challenges the "cultural revolution" thesis associated with historians like Arthur Marwick. This approach has not always endeared him to professional veterans of the period. The rock critic Charles Shaar Murray, for example, called him "the Hoodie historian ... throwing whatever passes for gang signs in the history department of the University of Sheffield".^[8]

Sandbrook continued the history of post-war Britain with State of Emergency (2010) covering the period 1970–1974.^[9] A fourth and final book in the series will cover the remaining years of the 1970s up to the election of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister in 1979.

Sandbrook has written articles and reviews which have appeared in the Daily Mail, Sunday Times, Sunday Telegraph, The Observer and The Daily Telegraph, and has appeared on BBC radio and television. His Radio Four series Slapdash Britain, charting the rise and fall of British governance since the Second World War, was described by the radio critic Miranda Sawyer as "very brilliant".^[10]

He currently lives in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire with his wife Catherine. ^[11]

Bibliography

• Eugene McCarthy and the Rise and Fall of Postwar American Liberalism, Dominic Sandbrook, Publ. Alfred A. Knopf (2004) ISBN 1-4000-4105-8
• Never Had It So Good: A History of Britain from Suez to the Beatles, Dominic Sandbrook, Publ. Little, Brown (2005) ISBN 0-316-86083-2
• White Heat: A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties, Dominic Sandbrook, Publ. Little, Brown (2006) ISBN 0-316-72452-1
• State of Emergency: The Way We Were: Britain 1970–1974, Dominic Sandbrook, Publ. Allen Lane (2010) ISBN 1-84614-031-5
• Mad as Hell: The Crisis of the 1970s and the Rise of the Populist Right, Dominic Sandbrook, Pub. Alfred A. Knopf (2011) ISBM 1-40004-262-3

References

1. ^ http://dominicsandbrook.com/wordpress/about/
2. ^ The Malvern Experience 11–31 July 2010. Malvern College official website. Retrieved 16th July 2010.
3. ^ The week ahead Sunday 21st January until Sunday 28th January. Wellington College official website. Retrieved 16th July 2010.
4. ^ Daily Telegraph, 1 May 2005, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3641340/The-actor-managers-greatest-production.html
5. ^ The Observer, 1 May 2005, http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2005/may/01/historybooks.features
6. ^ The Times, 5 August 2006.
7. ^ Daily Telegraph, 13 November 2009, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/6554803/100-books-that-defined-the-noughties.html
8. ^ Independent, 11 August 2006, http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/white-heat-by-dominic-sandbrookseventies-by-howard-sounes-411335.html
9. ^ Simon Sebag Montefiore "State of Emergency by Dominic Sandbrook: review", Sunday Telegraph, 10 October 2010
10. ^ Miranda Sawyer "Nicky Campbell; SlapDash Britain; Jeremy Vine", The Observer, 20 June 2010
11. ^ About Me. Dominic Sandbrook's own website http://dominicsandbrook.com/wordpress/about/

External links

• dominicsandbrook.com, Dominic Sandbrook's official website
• Dominic Sandbrook on Twitter

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Name	Sandbrook, Dominic
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Date of birth	1974
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