Simon Schama

“I chose this book because Simon Schama is such a wonderful writer. He has guts…He goes all the way, with all the senses engaged. Reading Schama is like stepping into a time machine. You can smell the paint, the poor quality of the air above Amsterdam’s canals, centuries ago…Rembrandt’s Eyes reads almost like a novel. He goes very far with some of his speculations, but I find it marvellous that Schama can do this about a foreign country—one that he didn’t even grow up in. It’s a real accomplishment of cultural empathy, and of course of bringing another time alive. He writes a book at once about a Dutch hero (and Rembrandt’s competition with Rubens, the Flemish master) and about Dutch history with the authority of a native…You have to remember: the only way to write about history or about a fabulous figure like Rembrandt is by being a storyteller. You have to use words, images, metaphors to kiss the past alive—and that is exactly what Schama does. I admire him for it. And since we’re talking about art, so much comes down to interpretation. Adopting an interpretive technique I think is fitting for the subject matter. What he does is to create a richer picture for the reader.” Read more...

The best books on Rembrandt

Onno Blom, Art Historians, Critics & Curator

“I read the three volumes of Schama’s A History of Britain quickly…they are beautifully written. There’s a rhythm to them. Schama has mastered that real art of history where you give somebody reading it enough of a sense of detail that they feel the historian knows what they’re doing and that you come out of it knowing more, but without getting bogged down in the detail that you don’t need…It’s a page-turner…He manages to capture, at different points of the book, a real sense of what’s distinctive about British history.” Read more...

The best books on Modern British History

Andrew Hindmoor, Historian

“Simon Schama, when he’s on form, is pretty well one of the most exciting writers we have today. His prose crackles with wit, insight, and a sort of rather original articulacy. He is a great writer. He’s a brilliant researcher. The book is essentially a series of the most colourful anecdotes. Some of us were joking that rather than being called Belonging: the Story of the Jews, it ought to be called Belonging: the Story of Some Jews. And that’s a compliment, by the way, not a criticism. It is a rolling, extraordinary tapestry of bizarre stories. But, behind them, lie some themes. Why are Jews always being excluded? Why are they a peripatetic race? How do they take root in society? Societies partially exclude them, which means they’re more active in commerce than they are in government, and so on. All sorts of themes that have enriched and influenced Judaism over the centuries are in the book. So it’s quite profound. But, above all else, it is just the most coruscatingly enjoyable read. It’s very big, very long, about 650 pages. But you won’t regret reading it, it’s fantastic.” Read more...

Best Nonfiction Books of 2017

Peter Bazalgette,

“There’s a big debate within the study of Dutch art about whether these works are pure transcriptions of reality, documents of a historical moment, or whether they are really symbolic texts that we should be interpreting on a figurative level. I think the debate comes down to this: is the best explanation of these images a thorough knowledge of Dutch history and culture at the time, such as Schama presents? Or is there something irreducible in the greatest Dutch art that you can’t boil down to historical context?” Read more...

The best books on The Dutch Masters

Adam Eaker, Art Historians, Critics & Curator

“He has done something that a few other historians have been able to do—and only a few—and that is to tell a story that’s sufficiently absorbing that people want to read it. It’s completely different from the other books. It’s all narrative…it’s filled with incredibly interesting titbits and anecdotes and characterisations of people. It’s generally negative about the revolution because it’s basically about how the revolution is really, really violent.” Read more...

The best books on The French Revolution

Lynn Hunt, Historian

“I’ve found this one of the most extraordinary books of cultural history I’ve ever read…Simon Schama has this talent for taking little stories and placing them in a broad context. I read it ages ago but the one chapter that has stayed with me most vividly is the one about mountains. He describes the journey humankind has taken in relation to their perception of mountains, which started as something really horrid and scary, so that in the early 18th century tourists who crossed the Alps drew their blinds to avoid seeing the horror of the mountains. They would literally blindfold themselves. Then in the later 18th century there’s the whole idea of the sublime, that you find God in the mountains as an awesome, glorious expression of God’s might.” Read more...

The best books on Horticulture

Andrea Wulf, Historian