Alex von Tunzelmann

Alex von Tunzelmann (born 1977) is a British historian and author.

Education

Tunzelmann was educated in Brighton and at University College, Oxford. There she read history and edited both Cherwell and Isis. She has worked primarily as a researcher and lives in London.

Books and writings

She has contributed to The Political Animal by Jeremy Paxman, The Truth About Markets by John Kay, Does Education Matter? by Alison Wolf, and Not on the Label by Felicity Lawrence. She has been recognized as a Financial Times Young Business Writer of the Year. Most recently she has collaborated with Jeremy Paxman on his book, On Royalty.

Recently, she has begun writing a weekly column for The Guardian entitled "Reel history", in which she discusses and rates popular films for their historical accuracy. She has also written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Daily Telegraph, Conde Nast Traveller, BBC Lonely Planet Magazine, and The Daily Beast. She is currently working on a book about the Suez Crisis of 1956. A film based on her book Indian Summer is currently in development with Working Title Films.

• Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire, 2007, her first book, details the liberation of India from the British Empire.
• Red Heat. Conspiracy, Murder, and the Cold War in the Caribbean, 2011, covers the relationship of the United States with Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti during the time of the Cold War. Her overall framework is based on the idea that the Cold War was not a static phenomenon but instead dynamic and involved 'hot wars' as well.

She has appeared on the literary discussion radio programme Litbits on Resonance FM, discussing literature and hair.