Philipp Blom
Philipp Blom (born 1970) is a historian, novelist, journalist and translator. He was born in Hamburg, Germany, grew up in Detmold, and studied in Vienna and Oxford. He holds a DPhil in Modern History from Oxford University. After living and working in London, Paris and Vienna he now lives in Los Angeles with his wife Veronica Buckley.
His historical works include To Have and To Hold,[1] a history of collectors and collecting, and Encyclopédie[2] (US edition: Enlightening the World), a history of the Encyclopaedia by Diderot and d'Alembert that sparked the Enlightenment in France. In The Vertigo Years, Blom argues that the break with the past that is often associated with the trauma of WWI actually had its roots in the years before the war from 1900-1914.[3] Blom followed this with Fracture: Life and Culture in the West, 1918-1938, a cultural history of the interwar years.
Blom has published two novels: The Simmons Papers[4] and Luxor (in German).[5]
He has also published a guide to Austrian wines, The Wines of Austria,[6] and an English translation of Geert Mak's Amsterdam (1999) (Blom has a Dutch mother and speaks the language as well).
As a journalist, Blom has written for the Times Literary Supplement, The Financial Times, The Independent, The Guardian, and the Sunday Telegraph in Britain, for various German-language publications (Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Die Zeit, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Financial Times Deutschland, Berliner Zeitung, Der Standard, Die Tageszeitung), and for Vrij Nederland in the Netherlands, as well as for other magazines and journals, the BBC, and German radio stations. He currently hosts a live cultural programme, "Von Tag zu Tag", on station Ö1 on Austrian National Radio.
Recently,[when?] Blom has written the libretto for an opera, Soliman, a project with the composer Joost van Kerkhooven, and has provided translations for stage productions (The Producers for the Établissement Ronacher, and La Colombe for the Schönbrunn Theatre, Vienna).
Works
- In English
- The Simmons Papers, London : Faber and Faber, 1995, ISBN 0571173152
- The Wines of Austria, London : Faber and Faber, 2000, ISBN 0571195334
- To Have and to Hold: An intimate History of Collectors and Collecting, Woodstock, NY : Overlook Press, 2003, ISBN 1585673773
- Enlightening the World: Encyclopédie, the Book That Changed the Course of History, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, ISBN 1403968950
- The Vertigo Years: Change and Culture in the West, 1900-1914, New York : Basic Books, 2008, ISBN 0465011160
- A Wicked Company: The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment, New York : Basic Books, 2010, ISBN 0465022782
- Fracture: Life and Culture in the West, 1918-1938, 2015
- In other languages
- Die Simmons Papiere, Berlin, Berlin Verlag, 1997, ISBN 3827002346
- Une histoire intime des collectionneurs, Paris: Payot, 2010, ISBN 2228905437
- Der taumelnde Kontinent, Europa 1900-1914, München: Hanser, 2009, ISBN 3446232923
- Encyclopédie: El triunfo de la razón en tiempos irracionales, Barcelona: Editorial Anagrama, 2007, ISBN 843396254X
- Böse Philosophen ein Salon in Paris und das vergessene Erbe der Aufklärung, München, Hanser, 2011. ISBN 3446236481
- Das vernünftige Ungeheuer: Diderot, d'Alembert, de Jaucourt und die Grosse Enzyklopädie, Frankfurt am Main: Eichborn, 2005, ISBN 3821845538
- Sammelwunder, Sammelwahn: Szenen aus der Geschichte einer Leidenschaft, Frankfurt am Main, Eichborn, 2004, ISBN 3821845376
- Luxor, Köln, Tisch 7, 2006, ISBN 3938476117
References
- ^ To Have and to Hold - An Intimate History of Collectors and Collecting, Allen Lane/Penguin, London, 2002
- ^ Encyclopédie - The Triumph of Reason in an Unreasonable Age, Fourth Estate, London, 2004
- ^ The Vertigo Years - Change and Culture in the West, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 2008
- ^ The Simmons Papers, Faber & Faber, London, 1995; German edition Die Simmons Papiere, Berlin Verlag, Berlin, 1997
- ^ Luxor, Tisch 7, Cologne, 2006
- ^ The Wines of Austria, Faber & Faber, London, 2000; reissued by Mitchell Beazley, London, 2006
External links
- Philipp Blom's website
- Reviews of To Have and To Hold
- Review of Encyclopedie, The Telegraph, 8 August 2004
- Review of The Vertigo Years, The Guardian 13 September 2008
- Link to Station Ö1 on Austrian National Radio
- Philipp Blom at A M Heath & Co Literary Agents
- On The Edge Adam Kirsch review of The Vertigo Years from The New York Review of Books
- Review of "Wicked Company" in www.theglobaldispatches.com
- Stories in which we believe, market, religion, science; lecture in Groningen (November 2012)
