Amanda Foreman (historian)

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File:Amanda Foreman at the Reform Club in 2009 © Bibi Basch.jpg
Amanda Foreman at the Reform Club in 2009 [© Bibi Basch/Random House via Bloomberg]

Amanda Lucy Foreman (born 1968) is a British/American biographer and historian.

Family

Foreman was born in London. Her parents were Evelyn (Smith) and the screenwriter and film producer Carl Foreman (1914–1984). Her father moved to England to work after being blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studios during the McCarthyism of the 1950s. Her brother, Jonathan Foreman, is an international correspondent and film critic. She has five children and is married to Jonathan Barton.

Education

Amanda Foreman was educated at Hanford School, a girls' junior independent school in southwest England,[1] followed by various girls' boarding schools. She attended Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, New York, then Columbia University, before returning to England in 1991. She was awarded the 1993 Henrietta Jex Blake Senior Scholarship at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. At Oxford, Foreman completed an MPhil thesis Politics or Providence?: Why the Houses of Parliament voted to abolish the slave trade in 1807 (1993) and a DPhil with her thesis The political life of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, 1757–1806 (1998) which was then turned into her first biography.

Career

Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire

After completing her DPhil, Foreman remained at Oxford as a researcher, and in 1998, she published her first book, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, based on her doctoral thesis. Published by HarperCollins in the UK and Random House in the US, the book was an international best-seller and reached number one in the UK as a hardback, paperback, and reissue nine years later. It was shortlisted for the 1998 Guardian First Book Prize, and won the 1998 Whitbread Prize for Best Biography.[2] The book has been the subject of a television documentary, a radio play, starring Judi Dench, and a film, The Duchess, starring Ralph Fiennes and Keira Knightley.[3]

A World on Fire

Foreman's most recent book, A World on Fire, a history of British-American relations in the American Civil War, was published in 2010 by Penguin in the UK on 30 June, and in 2011 by Random House in the US. The book was a critical success in both countries and a national best-seller in the US. Writing in The Guardian, Jay Parini stated, "One can hardly overestimate the brilliance of Foreman's conception, seeing this turning point in American history from a British viewpoint, drawing on a vast range of actors on this great stage, including lesser-known British sympathisers who fought on either side in this conflict or journalists."[4] Adam I.P. Smith of History Today said, "Amanda Foreman's magnificent new book . . . resembles nothing so much as War and Peace."[5] In a rare accolade, The New York Times Book Review awarded Foreman her second cover review.[6] Michael Burlingame of The Wall Street Journal heralded Foreman as "such an engaging writer that readers may find this 958-page volume too short".[7] Hendrik Hertzberg of The New Yorker wrote: "The pages fly like the wind – like Gone with the Wind – because there's so much life, so much action, and so many vivid people in them."[8]

In 2011, A World on Fire was "highly commended" by the judges of the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize. It was chosen as a "Book of the Year" by The New Yorker[9] and The Economist[10] and named one of the "Ten Best Books of 2011" by The New York Times,[11] Bloomberg,[12] The Washington Post,[13] the Chicago Tribune,[14] and NPR.[15]

In 2012, A World on Fire won the Fletcher Pratt Award for excellence in Civil War history writing. It was a finalist for the 2012 Lincoln Prize, the Lionel Gelber Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. It was also nominated for the Jefferson Davis Prize.

The Ascent of Woman

In September 2015, The Ascent of Woman, Foreman's acclaimed four part documentary regarding the role of women in society, was first aired on BBC 2.[16][17] The series received positive reviews, with The Telegraph calling it "powerful, inspiring, and important." [18]

Foreman's next book, The World Made by Women: A History of Women from the Apple to the Pill, is slated for publication by Random House (US) and Allen Lane (UK) in 2017.[19]

Other

In addition to her work as a historian and biographer, Amanda Foreman also writes for radio, television and print media. Her work is spread across a broad range, and includes a meditation on the role of the historian for BBC Radio 3,[20] a documentary series on the Georgians, 1714-1832, for BBC Radio 4,[21] a discussion of the Anglo-American relationship for Andrew Neil's This Week on BBC One,[22] cover interviews with Emma Watson and Keira Knightley for Vogue,[23][24] profiles of Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi for Porter,[25] and a cover story on Margaret Thatcher for Newsweek in December 2011.[26] Foreman herself has graced the covers of both The Sunday Times Magazine and The Lady in the UK.[27] She is also a passionate advocate for freedom of speech and has written about the subject for many publications.[28][29] In addition to freedom of speech, Foreman has campaigned on a variety of other issues, from justice for Jean McConville to gender equality.[30][31] In 2016, Foreman received the St. George's Society of New York's Anglo-American Cultural Award, which recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to the US-UK cultural world.[32]

In 2013, Foreman co-founded House of SpeakEasy, a literary nonprofit based in New York City that brings authors and their audiences together in innovative and entertaining ways. The organization hosts a series of acclaimed literary cabarets in New York City, where writers are invited to speak informally on the evening's theme. Past participants include Salman Rushdie, Susan Minot, Jeff Kinney (author), Elif Şafak, and Yusef Komunyakaa. House of SpeakEasy also operates several community outreach programs under the umbrella name Seriously Involved. SpeakFreely provides free tickets to teachers and writing students to come to the shows puts on by Seriously Entertaining. SpeakTogether works with Union Settlement in East Harlem, bringing writers together with senior high school students in Union Settlement's college readiness initiative. John Guare, Susan Cheever, David Gilbert (author), Michael Jan Friedman and Lemon Andersen are among the writers who have taken part in the program.[33]

Foreman has served as a judge on the Guardian First Book Award (1999), the Orange Prize for Fiction (2000), the National Book Award (2010), the Cheltenham Booker Prize (2011), the Dan David Prize (2012), the Pen Hessell-Tiltman Prize (2012), and the Man Booker Prize (2012). Most recently, she was appointed chair of the Man Booker Prize (2016).[34]

In 2013, Foreman began writing "Historically Speaking", a biweekly column on history and world affairs, for The Wall Street Journal.[35] In 2014, she also joined Smithsonian magazine and The Sunday Times as a regular columnist.[36]

Personal life

Foreman has dual citizenship, and splits her time between New York City, Kinderhook, NY, and London. She is a senior research fellow at the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters, Queen Mary, University of London.[37] Outside of her professional life, Foreman is a passionate gardener.[38]

References

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Bibliography

  • Foreman, Amanda. The World Made by Women: A History of Womankind from the Age of Cleopatra to the Era of Hillary Clinton. Forthcoming in 2016.
  • Foreman, Amanda. A World on Fire: An Epic History of Two Nations Divided (Penguin, 2010), 988 pp. ISBN 1-846-14204-0 OCLC 640084044 Reissued as A World on Fire: Britain’s Crucial Role in the American Civil War
  • Foreman, Amanda. The Duchess (Random House, 2008), 456 pp. ISBN 0812979699 OCLC 234316192 Originally published as Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire.
  • Foreman, Amanda. Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (Random House, 2001), 512 pp. ISBN 0-375-50294-7 OCLC 41278384 Another ed. was published By HarperCollins in 2000.
  • Foreman, Amanda. Georgiana's World: The Illustrated Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. London: HarperCollins, 2001. ISBN 0-007-12276-4 OCLC 48782725

Sources

External links

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