Daniel Snowman

Daniel Snowman (born 4 November 1938) is a British writer, historian, lecturer and broadcaster on social and cultural history. His career has spanned the academic world and the BBC, while his books include Kissing Cousins (a comparative study of British and American social attitudes); critical portraits of the Amadeus Quartet and of Plácido Domingo; a study of the cultural impact of The Hitler Émigrés; an anthology of essays about today's leading historians; The Gilded Stage: A Social History of Opera and Just Passing Through - Interactions with the World 1938 - 2021.

Life and career

Snowman was born and raised in London, his parents coming from Anglo-Jewish families with roots in 19th-century Eastern Europe. He was educated at Cambridge (Double First-class degree in History) and Cornell (MA in Government) and from 1963–7 was a lecturer in Politics and American Studies at the University of Sussex. In 1967, he went to the BBC for a 6-month stint as a radio producer, rejoining as a full-time staff member in 1970. In 1967, too, Snowman joined the London Philharmonic Choir, an ensemble with whom he sang for 48 years, and whose history he has written. at British arts festivals, academic and cultural institutions, luncheon clubs etc, and in a typical year would deliver over 50 illustrated talks and lectures across the UK and abroad. Since 1999 he presented over 750 illustrated lectures to members of The Arts Society (formerly NADFAS). In 2002 and again in 2006 he undertook a two-month, round-the-world lecture-and-research tour, including visits to various parts of Australia, New Zealand and North America. Daniel has also lectured for the Royal Opera (Covent Garden), Glyndebourne, English National Opera, the New York Metropolitan Opera Guild and Los Angeles Opera. In winter 2010/11, he delivered a six-part series of public lectures at the Royal Academy of Music on the Social History of Opera, and in 2017 presented a 12-week (36-session) course at the Victoria and Albert Museum to accompany their major exhibition on the subject – a lecture series he repeated at the V&A in 2018.

Tours He has also lectured on cruise liners, and between 2001-2014 he led over fifty music and opera tours for ACE, Cox & Kings, Martin Randall and other travel companies to many of the world's great cultural capitals, among them: Aix-en-Provence, Barcelona, Berlin, Bregenz, Budapest, Cracow, Dresden, Halle, Leipzig, Madrid, Milan, Munich, Naples, New York, Paris, Prague, Riga, Rome, Salzburg, Savonlinna, Seville/Andalucia, Stockholm, Torre del Lago, Turin, Valencia, Venice, Vienna and Warsaw.

Books

Why Not Let the Leaning Tower Collapse? (Brown Dog Books (23 Oct. 2024)) Just Passing Through: Interactions with the World 1938 - 2021 (Brown Dog Books (16 Sept. 2021)) Verdi (The History Press [Pocket Giants series], 2014) The Gilded Stage: A Social History of Opera (Atlantic Books, 2009; paperback edition, 2010; Italian edition (Il Palco d'oro) Elliot Edizioni, 2010; Chinese edition: Shanghai People's Publishing House, 2012; Spanish edition (La Ópera: Una historia social) Siruela, 2012; paperback 2016. Hallelujah! An informal history of the London Philharmonic Choir (London Philharmonic Choir, 2007) Historians (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, paperback edition, 2016) The Hitler Émigrés: The Cultural impact on Britain of Refugees from Nazism (Chatto and Windus, 2002; Pimlico paperback 2003, reprinted 2010) PastMasters: The Best of 'History Today''' (ed.) (Sutton: 2001)Fins de Siècle: How Centuries End, 1400-2000 (with Asa Briggs), (Yale University Press, 1996)Plácido Domingo's Tales From the Opera (BBC Books, 1994; Amadeus Press, USA, 1995)Pole Positions: The Polar Regions and the Future of the Planet (Hodder & Stoughton, 1993; Random House, Canada, 1993; Lubbe, 1994). It was this book that led the editors of New Scientist to the concept of nominative determinism, the hypothesis that people tend to gravitate towards areas of work that fit their name. Beyond the Tunnel of History: the 1989 BBC Reith Lectures (with Jacques Darras), (Macmillan (UK) and the University of Michigan Press, USA, 1990)The World of Plácido Domingo (The Bodley Head and McGraw-Hill, 1985; Arrow paperback 1986; Die Welt des Plácido Domingo, Schweizer Verlagshaus, 1986; new edition Domingo, 1992; Schott edition 1994; El Mundo de Plácido Domingo, Versal, Barcelona, 1986; Japanese edition, 1988; Hungarian edition, 1989)The Amadeus Quartet: The Men and the Music (Robson Books, 1981; Le Quattuor Amadeus, Buchet/Chastel, 1981)If I Had Been... Ten Historical Fantasies (ed.) (Robson Books, 1979)Kissing Cousins: An Interpretation of British and American Culture, 1945–1975 (Temple Smith, 1977; published in USA as Britain and America: An Interpretation of their Culture, New York University Press/Harper and Row, 1977); adapted and translated for use in Japan as English-language text, Kinseido Ltd, TokyoEleanor Roosevelt (Edito-Service, 1970); English and French language editionsAmerica Since 1920 (Harper and Row, 1968, and by Batsford, 1968 as USA: The Twenties to Vietnam. Republished in revised updated edition as America Since 1920'' by Heinemann Educational Books, 1978, 1980, 1984)