Nick Bunker (born November 25, 1958) is a British author, historian and a former journalist with the ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...

'.''

Biography

A Londoner by birth, Bunker attended Watford Boys Grammar School in Hertfordshire, England. Bunker attended

King's College, Cambridge King's College, formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, is a List of colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college lies beside the River Cam and faces ...

, where he graduated with a double first in English literature in 1981. In 1983 Bunker completed a master's degree at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Career

Bunker became a news reporter for the ''

Liverpool Echo The ''Liverpool Echo'' is a newspaper published by Trinity Mirror North West & North Wales – a subsidiary company of Reach plc and is based in St. Paul's Square, Liverpool, England. It is published Monday through Sunday, and is Liverpool's da ...

'' . Bunker then spent six years as a ''Financial Times'' journalist. He switched careers in the 1990s to work in investment analysis and corporate finance. Bunker's first book, ''Making Haste From Babylon: The Mayflower Pilgrims and their World'' (2010) was long-listed for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction (now the Baillie Gifford Prize). This was followed in 2014 by ''An Empire on the Edge'', which explored the immediate origins of the Revolutionary War centring on the

Boston Tea Party The Boston Tea Party was a seminal American protest, political and Mercantilism, mercantile protest on December 16, 1773, during the American Revolution. Initiated by Sons of Liberty activists in Boston in Province of Massachusetts Bay, colo ...

and placing it in its global context in the China tea trade and the near collapse of the

British East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

in 1772. Besides winning the George Washington Prize and being a Pulitzer finalist, ''An Empire on the Edge'' also won the 2015 Fraunces Tavern Museum Book Award for the best recently released book about the period. Researched in London, Boston, Philadelphia and elsewhere Bunker's third book, ''Young Benjamin Franklin: The Birth of Ingenuity'' (2018) dealt with the first four decades of

Franklin Franklin may refer to: People and characters * Franklin (given name), including list of people and characters with the name * Franklin (surname), including list of people and characters with the name * Franklin (class), a member of a historic ...

’s life and his emergence as a scientist with his electrical experiments in the 1740s. On January 17, 2019 Bunker gave the annual Benjamin Franklin Birthday Lecture at the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...

in Philadelphia, with the title ''How Did Benjamin Franklin Become a Physicist''? Bunker was the senior historical adviser for ''Pilgrims'', a two-hour PBS ''American Experience'' film directed by Ric Burns, which first aired in the US at Thanksgiving 2015 and in the UK as ''The Mayflower Pilgrims: Behind the Myth'' in 2016.

Bibliography

''Making Haste From Babylon: The Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World''. New York: Alfred A. Knopf (2010) , and London: The Bodley Head (2010), ''An Empire on the Edge: How Britain Came to Fight America''. New York: Alfred A. Knopf (2014), . London: The Bodley Head (2015), ''Young Benjamin Franklin: The Birth of Ingenuity''. New York: Alfred A. Knopf (2018), ''In the Shadow of Fear: America and the World in 1950''. New York: Basic Books (2023),

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bunker, Nick British writers 1958 births Living people