Professor Chris Gosden is Chair of European Archaeology at Oxford University and has carried out archaeological fieldwork in Papua New Guinea, Turkmenistan, Borneo and Britain. Previously, he was a curator and lecturer at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, where he worked on the history of collections and their relevance to post-colonial relations and identity. Chris is a fellow of the British Academy and Society of Antiquaries, as well as a trustee of the Art Fund and the British Museum. He is the author of Prehistory for the Oxford Very Short Introductions series.

In 2020, Viking published his first trade book, The History of Magic: From Alchemy to Witchcraft, from the Ice Age to the Present (Viking), on the divergence of scientifically based societies arising in cities over the last 5000 years and the magic-oriented peoples of the steppes and forest. It was picked a Telegraph Book of the Year and widely praised in the media.

Tim Harford is an economist, journalist and broadcaster. He is a senior columnist for the Financial Times, writing as “The Undercover Economist”, and presenter of BBC Radio’s “More or Less”, “How To Vaccinate the World”, and “Fifty Things That Made the Modern Economy,” as well as the podcast “Cautionary Tales”.

Tim is an associate member of Nuffield College, Oxford and an honorary fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. He was made an OBE for services to improving economic understanding in the New Year honours of 2019 and named Journalist of the Year in 2021 by the Wincott Foundation. An evangelist for the power of economics, wisely used, Tim has spoken at TED, PopTech and Sydney Opera House. His TED talks alone have been viewed more than 11 million times.

Tim is the author of the The Undercover Economist (Little, Brown, 2005), which has sold nearly 2 million copies and provides a fresh explanation of the fundamental principles of the modern economy, illuminated by examples from the booming skyscrapers of Shanghai to the sleepy canals of Bruges. The Undercover Economist has been translated into over 30 languages and named ‘a book to savor’ by The New York Times. Other books include: The Logic of Life (Abacus, 2009), Dear Undercover Economist (Abacus, 2010), Adapt (Abacus, 2011), The Undercover Economist Strikes Back (Little, Brown, 2013), Messy (Little, Brown, 2016), Fifty Things That Made The Modern Economy (Little, Brown, 2017), and The Next Fifty Things That Made the Modern Economy (The Bridge Street Press, 2020).

How To Make the World Add Up (The Bridge Street Press, 2020) was a Sunday Times Business bestseller and became the bestselling UK business book of 2021. Stephen Fry described it as ‘fabulously readable, lucid, witty and authoritative.’

Tim’s first children’s book The Truth Detective: How to Make Sense of a World That Doesn’t Add Up was published by Hachette Children’s in March 2023. Extremely clever and exceptionally fun, this book is perfectly designed to help children make sense of our complicated world.

If you would like to schedule an event with Tim, please contact JLA Speakers, or LeighBureauLTD.com if the event is outside the UK.

Photo courtesy of Fran Monks

Simon Hall is Professor of Modern History at the University of Leeds, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. His research interests lie in the post-war social and political history of the United States – with a particular focus on the civil rights and Black Power movements; the student radicalism of the 1960s; and political dissent during the 1970s and 1980s.

Simon’s book, 1956: The World in Revolt, was published by Faber in the UK and Pegasus Books in the US in 2016. Praised by Nicholas Blincoe, in the Daily Telegraph, as a ‘cinemascope epic, packed with detail’, 1956 has subsequently been translated into German, Dutch, Polish and Chinese.

Ten Days in Harlem: Fidel Castro and the Making of the 1960s, published by Faber in 2020, shows how Fidel’s iconic trip to New York, in September 1960, for the opening of the UN General Assembly, was a foundational moment in the trajectory of the Cold War, a turning point in the history of anti-colonial struggle, and a launching pad for the social, cultural and political tumult of the decade that followed. Dominic Sandbrook of the Literary Review says: ‘with its cool judgements and bleak comic sense of irony, Hall’s book is a pleasure to read.’

His latest book, Three Revolutions (Faber, 2025) tells the gripping, untold story of how six epic journeys launched the three communist revolutions that changed world history forever..

Photo courtesy of Paul Stuart

David Goldblatt was born in London in 1965 and, for his sins, inherited Tottenham Hotspur from his father. In 2006, he published The Ball is Round: A Global History of Football (Penguin), which has established itself as the definitive social, political and sporting history of the global game. In 2014, he published The Game of Our Lives: The Meaning and Making of English Football (Penguin), which was the winner of the William Sports Book of the Year Award 2015. Along the way there have been a lot of other books (Brazilian football, the history of the Olympic Games), a lot of journalism and broadcasting (BBC Radio 4, The Guardian and Observer, the New York Times, yada yada) and a regular visiting professorship at Pitzer College, Los Angeles. He now lives in Bristol and, for yet more sins, acquired Bristol Rovers. The Age of Football, about global football since 2000, was published by Macmillan in the UK and Norton in the US in 2019. The Sunday Times describe it as ‘a globe-trotting magnum opus’.

His latest book, Injury Time is published this month with Mudlark.

Sir Lawrence Freedman is Emeritus Professor of War Studies at King’s College London. Elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1995 and awarded the CBE in 1996, he was appointed Official Historian of the Falklands Campaign in 1997. In June 2009 he was appointed to serve as a member of the official inquiry into Britain and the 2003 Iraq War.

Sir Lawrence’s publications include A Choice of Enemies: America Confronts the Middle East (W&N, 2008), which won the 2009 Lionel Gelber Prize and the 2009 Duke of Westminster’s Medal for Military Literature. Strategy: A History (OUP, 2013) was named one of the best books of 2013 by the Financial Times and was awarded the W J McKenzie Book Prize by the Political Studies Association. Two recent titles are Nuclear Deterrence: A Ladybird Expert Book (Michael Joseph, 2018) and Ukraine and the Art of Strategy (OUP, 2019).

In 2022, Allen Lane published Command: The Politics of Military Operations from Korea to Ukraine, a thoughtful new work of military history which argues that decision-making cannot be separated from civilian priorities.

Christopher Duggan (1957-2015) was a world-leading historian of Modern Italy. His interest in Italy, initially for the Medieval period, began in his teens and he travelled in the country before and after his undergraduate degree. Duggan earned his D.Phil in History at Merton College, Oxford, on the topic of Fascism’s struggle against the Mafia. In 1985 he was elected to a prize fellowship at All Souls, later moving to the University of Reading where he was appointed to a lectureship in history in the Department of Italian Studies (rising to Professor in 2013).

His books include Francesco Crispi, 1818-1901, Fascist Voices: Mussolini’s Italy 1919-1945 and The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy (winner of the 2013 Wolfson Prize).

James Fearnley was a co-founder and the accordionist for the London-Irish celtic-punk band The Pogues. The Pogues took off into international renown in 1984, disbanding 12 years later with the firing of their lead singer. Reunifying in 2001, The Pogues played around the world until 2014.

Upon his departure from the band in 1993, James emigrated to the United States to form The Low and Sweet Orchestra, whose debut album, Goodbye to All That, was released to much acclaim. In tandem with his recording career, James committed himself to writing a memoir about his life with the Pogues.

Here Comes Everybody: the Story of The Pogues was published by Faber and Faber in the UK in 2012, and in the US in 2014 by Chicago Review Press.

With lyricism and great honesty Here Comes Everybody captures the young friendships, the arguments, the gigs, the highs and dramatic lows in a compelling, humorous, moving and candid account of life in one of the Western world’s most treasured and original bands. The author’s own recording of his memoir is available from Audible UK. It includes music recorded by Fearnley specifically for the audiobook.