David Starkey

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Topics:

• Leadership
• Politics

The UK's most outspoken academic, Dr DAVID STARKEY has achieved notoriety as an erudite after dinner speaker and an outstanding lecturer.

Media Career

He is the UK's leading constitutional and monarchy expert and a colourful media personality. David appears frequently on television and radio, often invited on such programmes as BBC's Question Time and Newsnight. David Starkey's documentaries on the Life of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I have both achieved the highest-ever rating for history programmes screened on Channel 4 with audiences of 3.5 million, beating popular comedy shows including Frasier, Friends and Da Ali G Show. This was followed by The Six Wives of Henry VIII, for Channel 4 which also proved very popular. He has written or edited several books, including 'Rivals in Power', 'The Reign of Henry VIII: Personalities and Politics', 'English Court from the Wars of the Roses to the Civil War,' and 'Elizabeth: Apprenticeship' which has been rated the number one non-fiction best seller in The Times. Internationally, he is a consultant to the American network CBS on all constitutional matters. In addition to his media profile, David is a respected academic who until recently lectured in international history at the London School of Economics, University of London, and is now a bye-fellow at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge.

Academia

David was born in 1945 in Kendal, Cumbria. He was educated at Kendal Grammar School and Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. For a time he was a Research Fellow at Cambridge, before moving to the London School of Economics as lecturer in history. In 1987 and 1989 he was Visiting Vernon Professor of Biography at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire. Also in 1989 he was a British Council Funded 'Specialist Visitor' to Australia, where he gave a series of nineteen lectures at seven universities in six weeks. His doctoral dissertation on the court of Henry VIII has been described as 'an underground classic'. Having returned to Fitzwilliam College to pursue research interests which have developed to include a broad spectrum of cultural, social and political history. He has written and edited several books, including Rivals in Power, The Reign of Henry VIII: Personalities and Politics and The English Court from the Wars of the Roses to the Civil War and Elizabeth: Apprenticeship, to accompany the television series. For which he received the W H Smith Book Award for Biography/Autobiography 2001. He is a regular contributor to a wide range of periodicals and newspapers. David sits on the editorial board of the magazine History Today and he is a member of the panel of experts advising on the export of works of art. In 1993 he joined the Commemorative Plaques Working Group at English Heritage, which is responsible for the placing of the famous blue plaques on London buildings.

Popular Historian

He has been acclaimed as the 'AJP Taylor of our times' and his populist instincts mean that he has a very direct way of relating history. In appreciation of his contribution he was awarded the Norton Medlicott Medal for Services to History by the Historical Association in 2001. With his wealth of knowledge and skills as a communicator, David blends information and insight with humour. He is an attractive figure to the media and recently acted as consultant to CBS during their unprecedented coverage of a British news story - the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Corporate Speaker

David draws some spectacular analogies with the monarchy in his discourses on corporate leadership and is a prominent commentator on the state of British politics, business and society. An eloquent and highly accomplished speaker who both entertains and enthuses his audiences, Dr David Starkey is intelligent, ever witty, sometimes controversial, and always thought-provoking.

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