Mike Dash
{{short description|Welsh writer and historian}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
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| occupation = Writer, historian and researcher
| nationality = British
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| alma_mater = University of Cambridge
King's College London (PhD)
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Mike Dash is a Welsh writer, historian, and researcher. He has written books and articles about dramatic episodes in history.
Biography
Dash was born in London. He attended Peterhouse, Cambridge, a college particularly noted for teaching history,{{cite book |title=David Knowles Remembered |editor=Brooke, Christopher |year=1991 |isbn=0-521-37233-X |publisher=Cambridge University Press}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.history.ac.uk/makinghistory/themes/peterhouse_school.html|title = Peterhouse School - Themes - Making History}} and completed postgraduate work at King's College London, where he obtained a Ph.D.
Dash authored a series of books covering incidents in the history of the Dutch East India Company, the Netherlands, India under British rule, and New York during the Progressive Era. Each focuses on a single event or series of events, among them the wreck of the East Indiaman Batavia, the Dutch tulip mania of 1634–1637, and the early years of the American Mafia. He has written for a history blog, "Past Imperfect", published by Smithsonian Magazine.{{cite web|url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/welcome-to-past-imperfect-35783980/|title=Welcome to Past Imperfect|author=|website=Smithsonian Magazine|quote="To learn more about our writers, Karen Abbott, Mike Dash and Gilbert King, check out our About Us page."|access-date=December 8, 2022}} In 2014, his blog post on the Lykov family, "Lost in the Taiga," was named one of "Nearly 100 Fantastic Pieces of Journalism" by The Atlantic.{{cite news| url=https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/05/slightly-more-than-100-fantastic-pieces-of-journalism/284564/ | work=The Atlantic | title=Nearly 100 Fantastic Pieces of Journalism | date=May 19, 2014}}
Dash's 2009 book, The First Family, is a new history of Giuseppe Morello and the establishment of the Mafia in the United States. He began writing for the Smithsonian in July 2011 when the Institution acquired his history site, "A Blast from the Past", shortly after the History News Network awarded it the 2010 Cliopatria prize for history blogging.{{Cite news | url=http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/135179 | title=The Cliopatria Awards, 2010 | work=History News Network | date=January 7, 2011 | accessdate=2 May 2012 }}{{dead link|date=January 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}{{Cite web|url=http://allkindsofhistory.wordpress.com/about/#comment-138|title=About a Blast from the Past|date=8 September 2010}} In addition to blogging, Dash regularly contributes to r/AskHistorians, and since January 2019 he has republished material written for AskHistorians on his personal blog's "Ask Mike" page.{{Cite web|url=https://mikedashhistory.com/2019/01/18/ask-mike/|title=Ask Mike|last=Dash|first=Mike|date=2019-01-18|website=A Blast From The Past|language=en|access-date=2019-12-30}}
Bibliography
- The Limit: Engineering at the Boundaries of Science. BBC, 1995. {{ISBN|0-563-37117-X}}.
- Borderlands: The Ultimate Exploration of the Unknown. Dell, 1997. {{ISBN|0-440-23656-8}}.
- Tulipomania: The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower & the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused. Crown, 2000. {{ISBN|0-609-60439-2}}.
- Batavia's Graveyard: The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History's Bloodiest Mutiny. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2002. {{ISBN|0-575-07024-2}}.
- Thug: The True Story of India's Murderous Cult. Granta Books, 2005. {{ISBN|1-86207-604-9}}.
- Satan's Circus: Murder, Vice, Police Corruption, and New York's Trial of the Century. Crown Publishing, 2007. {{ISBN|978-0-307-39522-1}}.
- The First Family: Terror, Extortion and the Birth of the American Mafia. Simon & Schuster, 2009. {{ISBN|978-1-84737-173-7}}.
Notes
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{official website|http://www.mikedash.com}}
- [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/author/mike-dash/ Articles] in Smithsonian magazine
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dash, Mike}}
Category:Alumni of Peterhouse, Cambridge
Category:Alumni of King's College London