SCHAMA, SIMON

SCHAMA, SIMON (1945– ), British-American historian. Schama was educated at Cambridge University, where he taught from 1966 to 1976. He subsequently taught at Oxford and then in the United States, where he became a professor at Harvard and, later, Columbia University. He wrote important works on Dutch history, such as Patriots and Liberators: Revolution in the Netherlands, 1780–1813 (1977) and An Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age (1987), as well as a bestselling account of the French Revolution, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (1989). Schama also wrote widely on art, in such works as Rembrandt's Eyes (1999), and was the art critic of The New Yorker magazine in 1995–98. He is probably best-known for the 16-part history of Britain he made for the BBC, which was watched by millions of viewers and became a bestselling three-volume work, A History of Britain (2000–3). Schama also wrote on Jewish history, The Rothschilds and the Land of Israel (1978). (William D. Rubinstein (2nd ed.)