Richard Aldous is a British historian and biographer based at Bard College, New York.
Born in Essex, Aldous was educated at the University of Cambridge. In 2006 he was made Head of the School of History and Archives in University College Dublin. Aldous has written books about Malcolm Sargent, Harold Macmillan, a twin-biography of Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone, a study of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher’s political relationship, a book on JFK’s treasury secretary C. Douglas Dillon, as well as a biography of Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.
Since 2010 he is the Eugene Meyer Professor of British History and Culture at Bard College, where he has served as Chair of the Faculty Senate. He is a Contributing Editor for The American Interest, a founding member of the editorial team at American Purpose magazine, and host of the Bookstack podcast. He has written for newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the New York Times, and appeared on CNN, Fox News, PBS, RTÉ and the BBC. He was the Spectrum News/NY1 Royal Expert for coverage of the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II and the coronation of King Charles III.
Books in order of publication:
Harold Macmillan and Britain’s World Role (edited with Sabine Lee). Macmillan, 1995
Harold Macmillan: Aspects of a Political Life (edited with Sabine Lee). Macmillan, 1999
Tunes Of Glory: The Life of Malcolm Sargent. Hutchinson, 2001
Macmillan, Eisenhower And The Cold War, Four Courts Press, 2005
The Lion and the Unicorn: Gladstone vs Disraeli. Hutchinson/W. W. Norton, 2006
Great Irish Speeches. Quercus, 2007
Reagan and Thatcher. The Difficult Relationship. Hutchinson/W. W. Norton, 2012
Tony Ryan: Ireland’s Aviator. Gill & Macmillan, 2013
Schlesinger: The Imperial Historian. W. W. Norton, 2017
Diplomacy & Statecraft, Volume 33, Issue 1, 2022 (edited with Nigel Ashton): David Reynolds: Studies in Competitive Co-operation.
The Dillon Era: Douglas Dillon in the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson Administration. McGill–Queen’s University Press, 2023
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