Embarrassment of Riches

Simon Schama is University Professor of Art History and History at Columbia University. He is the author of 'Patriots and Liberators', which won the Wolfson Prize for History, 'The Embarrassment of Riches', 'Citizens' which won the 1990 NCR book award for non-fiction, 'Dead Certainties', 'Landscape and Memory' which won the W H Smith Literary Award in 1995, and 'Rembrandt's Eyes' (1999). He is also the author of the monumental 'History of Britain' published in three volumes. He was art critic of the 'New Yorker' from 1995 to 1998 and was made CBE in the 2001 New Year's Honours list.

‘Simon Schama writes with grace and wit, and his enthusiasms are contagious.’ Anita Brookner‘Schama is one of the few historians writing today who can recreate the mentalité of another culture.’ Jonathan Miller‘One reads it all with mounting enjoyment and at the end one’s sense of Dutch civilisation in the Golden Age of Rembrandt and van Diemen is not just salted and enriched – but remade.’ Robert Hughes‘This is history on the grand scale, and like all generously conceived historical works leaves us reflecting about the present as well as the past.’ John Gross, New York Times‘Seldom has a people opened its doors so wide. A performance on the epic scale.’ Independent