Waterstones: The Best Books of 2020: History

Shashi 4 years ago

If learning about the past is how we avoid making mistakes in the future then 2020’s crop of history books are of enormous import and value. Patrick Vernon and Angelina Osborne’s groundbreaking survey of Black British pioneers rescued hitherto neglected figures from the margins of history, whilst Margaret MacMillan’s study of war asked probing questions about humanity’s drive to conflict and Chris Bryant’s gripping account of anti-appeasement queer MPs highlighted the importance of standing up to despots and dictators. Elsewhere, we were treated to entertaining takes on English history and Greek myth and gripping true stories of epsionage and fighter aircraft in the Second World War.

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Patrick Vernon is a social commentator and campaigner and has been at the forefront of several high-profile campaigns on cultural heritage and social justice in the UK over the last decade. He has used experience in senior management in the voluntary and public sector plus his passion in for cultural history to develop new models of thinking around transformation changes in service development, equalities, innovative thinking for social change. He is a trained life coach and mediator where his experience and knowledge has been used for leadership development and public speaking from grass roots organisations to public and private bodies.