Simon Schama facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Sir Simon Schama
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At the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award presentation in 2013
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Simon Michael Schama
13 February 1945 Marylebone, London, England
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| Education | Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School |
| Alma mater | Christ's College, Cambridge |
| Awards | Wolfson History Prize Leo Gershoy Award Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature |
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Sir Simon Michael Schama (born 13 February 1945) is a famous English historian and TV presenter. He is known for his work on art history, Dutch history, Jewish history, and French history. He teaches history and art history at Columbia University in the United States.
Schama became well-known after publishing his book Citizens in 1989. This book was about the French Revolution. He also wrote and hosted the 15-part BBC TV show A History of Britain from 2000 to 2002. He created other TV series too, like The American Future: A History (2008) and The Story of the Jews (2013).
In 2018, Simon Schama was made a knight. This means he can use the title "Sir" before his name.
Contents
Early Life and School Days
Simon Schama was born in Marylebone, London, on 13 February 1945. His mother, Gertie, came from a Lithuanian Jewish family. His father, Arthur Schama, had a Sephardi Jewish background from Turkey.
In the mid-1940s, his family moved to Southend-on-Sea before returning to London. In 1956, Schama won a scholarship to Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School. He then studied history at Christ's College, Cambridge. He learned from a famous historian named John H. Plumb. Schama finished his studies at the University of Cambridge in 1966 with top honors.
Simon Schama's Career
From 1966 to 1976, Schama was a teacher and history director at Christ's College, Cambridge. He then moved to Oxford University in 1976. There, he became a fellow at Brasenose College, Oxford, focusing on the French Revolution. He also worked in Paris at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences.
During this time, Schama wrote his first book, Patriots and Liberators. It won the Wolfson History Prize. The book was about the 1780s revolution in the Netherlands. His second book, Two Rothschilds and the Land of Israel (1978), looked at the Zionist goals of two members of the Rothschild family.
Working in the United States
In 1980, Schama became a history professor at Harvard University. His next book, The Embarrassment of Riches (1987), was also about Dutch history. It explored how the Dutch Golden Age in the 1600s balanced living richly with living a religious life. This book used many illustrations to show Dutch character.
His book Citizens (1989) was a study of the French Revolution. It won the 1990 NCR Book Award. Schama suggested that the violence of the Revolution was present from the very beginning.
In 1989, Schama appeared on the TV series Art of the Western World. He talked about paintings by famous artists like Diego Velázquez, Rembrandt, and Johannes Vermeer.
In 1991, he published Dead Certainties (Unwarranted Speculations). This book looked at two deaths that happened a hundred years apart. Schama explored how historians try to understand past events. He showed that it's hard to fully recreate a past world, even with many documents. This book mixed facts with ideas about what might have happened.
Schama's next book, Landscape and Memory (1995), explored how nature and human memory are connected. It looked at how woods, water, and rocks are part of our shared memories and myths. This book was very popular and won many awards.
From 1995, Schama became an art critic for The New Yorker magazine for three years. He also taught at Columbia University. Some of his essays about art were published in a book called Hang Ups in 2005. During this time, he also wrote Rembrandt's Eyes, a successful book that compared the lives of Rembrandt van Rijn and Peter Paul Rubens.
Working with the BBC
In 2000, Schama returned to the UK. The BBC asked him to create a TV series about British history. This series, called A History of Britain, was part of the Millennium celebrations. Schama wrote and presented all 15 episodes himself. The show was very popular and received great reviews. It covered British history up to 1965. Schama also wrote three books to go along with the series.
In 2001, Schama received a CBE honor. In 2003, he signed a big deal with the BBC and HarperCollins for new books and TV shows. The first project from this deal was a book and TV show called Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution. It focused on how slaves were offered freedom during the American Revolutionary War if they helped the British.
In 2006, the BBC aired Simon Schama's Power of Art. Schama wrote and presented this series, which also had a book. It was about art history and looked at eight famous artists through their key artworks. These included Caravaggio's David with the Head of Goliath and Picasso's Guernica.
In October 2008, Schama presented a four-part TV series called The American Future: A History. In March 2009, he hosted a BBC Radio 4 show called Baseball and Me. This show explored the history of baseball and his love for the Boston Red Sox team.
In 2010, Schama gave a series of ten talks for the BBC Radio 4 show A Point of View.
In 2011, the BBC asked Simon Schama to create a five-part series about the history of Jewish people. This series, titled The Story of the Jews, aired in September 2013. Critics praised it as an amazing TV achievement.
In 2018, Simon Schama wrote and presented five episodes of Civilisations. This was a new version of a famous 1969 TV series.
Personal Life
Simon Schama is Jewish. He is married to Virginia Papaioannou, who is a geneticist. They have two children, Chloe and Gabriel. As of 2014, Schama lives in Briarcliff Manor, New York. He is a fan of the Tottenham Hotspur football team.
Awards and Honors
Simon Schama has received many awards for his work in history and art.
- 1977: Wolfson History Prize, for Patriots and Liberators
- 1977: Leo Gershoy Award, for Patriots and Liberators
- 1990: NCR Book Award, for Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution
- 1992: American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature
- 1996: WH Smith Literary Award, for Landscape and Memory
- 2001: He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).
- 2006: National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction winner, for Rough Crossings
- 2007: International Emmy Award, for an episode of Simon Schama's Power of Art
- 2015: He became a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy.
- 2015: Feltrinelli Prize for History
- 2017: He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
- 2018: He was made a Knight Bachelor for his contributions to history.
See also
In Spanish: Simon Schama para niños
