Mike Dash is a Welsh writer, historian, and researcher. He has written books and articles about dramatic episodes in history.

Biography

Dash was born in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. He attended Peterhouse, Cambridge, a college particularly noted for teaching

history History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

, and completed postgraduate work at

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public university, public research university in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV ...

, where he obtained a Ph.D. Dash authored a series of books covering incidents in the history of the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( ; VOC ), commonly known as the Dutch East India Company, was a chartered company, chartered trading company and one of the first joint-stock companies in the world. Established on 20 March 1602 by the States Ge ...

, the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

, India under British rule, and New York during the Progressive Era. Each focuses on a single event or series of events, among them the wreck of the East Indiaman ''Batavia'', the Dutch

tulip mania Tulip mania () was a period during the Dutch Golden Age when contract prices for some bulbs of the recently introduced and fashionable tulip reached extraordinarily high levels. The major acceleration started in 1634 and then dramatically co ...

of 1634–1637, and the early years of the

American Mafia The American Mafia, commonly referred to in North America as the Italian-American Mafia, the Mafia, or the Mob, is a highly organized Italian-American criminal society and organized crime group. The terms Italian Mafia and Italian Mob apply to ...

. He has written for a history

blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

, "Past Imperfect", published by Smithsonian Magazine. In 2014, his blog post on the Lykov family, "Lost in the Taiga," was named one of "Nearly 100 Fantastic Pieces of Journalism" by ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 185 ...

''. Dash's 2009 book, ''The First Family'', is a new history of Giuseppe Morello and the establishment of the Mafia in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. He began writing for the Smithsonian in July 2011 when the Institution acquired his history site, "A Blast from the Past", shortly after the History News Network awarded it the 2010 Cliopatria prize for history blogging. In addition to blogging, Dash regularly contributes to r/AskHistorians, and since January 2019 he has republished material written for AskHistorians on his personal blog's "Ask Mike" page.

Bibliography

*''The Limit: Engineering at the Boundaries of Science''. BBC, 1995. . *''Borderlands: The Ultimate Exploration of the Unknown''. Dell, 1997. . *''Tulipomania: The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower & the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused''. Crown, 2000. . *'' Batavia's Graveyard: The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History's Bloodiest Mutiny''. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2002. . *''Thug: The True Story of India's Murderous Cult''. Granta Books, 2005. . *''Satan's Circus: Murder, Vice, Police Corruption, and New York's Trial of the Century''. Crown Publishing, 2007. . *''The First Family: Terror, Extortion and the Birth of the American Mafia''.

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster LLC (, ) is an American publishing house owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts since 2023. It was founded in New York City in 1924, by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. Along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group US ...

, 2009. .

Notes

External links

*
Articles
in '' Smithsonian'' magazine {{DEFAULTSORT:Dash, Mike Fortean writers Alumni of Peterhouse, Cambridge Alumni of King's College London 1963 births Living people Welsh male journalists Historians of the Dutch Republic