Peter Watson (intellectual historian)

Watson attended Cheltenham Grammar School.{{cite web |title=Stolen! How, when and why? |url=https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/event/stolen-how-when-and-why |website=Royal Academy |access-date=17 February 2019}} He graduated in Psychology from Durham in 1964.{{cite web |title=Watson, Peter 1943- (Peter Frank Patrick Watson) |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/watson-peter-1943-peter-frank-patrick-watson |website=Encyclopedia |access-date=6 November 2018 |language=en}}{{cite journal |title=Graduates|journal=University of Durham Gazette |date=1964 |volume=11 |issue=3 |page=15}} He subsequently earned a scholarship to study for a diploma in music at La Sapienza and then completed a doctorate at the University of London.

After university Watson trained as a psychologist at the Tavistock Clinic in London under R. D. Laing, but left this profession in the late 1960s after becoming dissatisfied with Freudian theories.{{cite news |last1=Solomon |first1=Deborah |title=What's the Big Idea? |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/magazine/whats-the-big-idea.html |newspaper=New York Times |date=11 December 2005 |access-date=6 November 2018 |language=en}} Having given up psychology he settled into a career in journalism and edited the first incarnation of Race Today, a journal launched in 1969 by the Institute of Race Relations think-tank. He worked at New Society from 1970 to 1973, eventually serving as deputy editor, and was for four years a member of the Insight team at The Sunday Times.

While working for The Sunday Times he published the book, War on the Mind: The Military Uses and Abuses of Psychology, which revealed psychological research carried out by various military forces in the Cold War period. This book, Watson's first, had its roots in a 1973 assignment from the Insight team to look into the uses of psychological warfare by the British Army in Northern Ireland during the height of The Troubles.{{cite book |last1=Watson |first1=Peter |title=War on the Mind: The Military Uses and Abuses of Psychology |url=https://archive.org/details/waronmind00wats |url-access=registration |date=1978 |publisher=Basic Books |location=New York |pages=[https://archive.org/details/waronmind00wats/page/13 13–14] |chapter=Preface|isbn=9780465090655 }} As part of his research Watson visited the Fort Bragg army base in North Carolina, which convinced him that military psychology was more advanced than he had previously imagined. Later, he briefly moved his career to America, where he was New York correspondent of The Times from 1981 to 1982.

His 1984 book, The Caravaggio Conspiracy, is based on his experience going undercover with the Carabinieri to investigate the theft of a Caravaggio painting, the Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence, which had been stolen in 1969 from the Oratorio di San Lorenzo in Palermo.{{cite news |last1=Broyard |first1=Anatole |title=Books of the Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1983/12/22/books/books-of-the-times-128088.html |newspaper=New York Times |date=22 December 1983 |access-date=6 November 2018 |language=en}} Watson conceived the idea for a book on stolen antiquities in 1979, while the printers of The Sunday Times were on strike and the owners suspended publication for 11 months, giving himself and other writers time to pursue personal projects.{{cite web |title=Krumpets With Medici Conspiracy's Peter Watson |url=http://www.suzanmazur.com/?p=108 |website=Suzan Mazur |access-date=16 February 2019 |language=en}} He concluded the Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence was most likely stolen by members of Cosa Nostra. Although unsuccessful in recovering the painting that was the focus of the book, he did manage to obtain six other stolen works.

Watson would later return to the art world as a subject in Sotheby's: The Inside Story (1998). The book accused Sotheby's of selling antiquities it knew to have been stolen.{{cite web |title=Sothebys: The Inside Story |url=https://peterwatsonauthor.com/books/sothebys-the-inside-story/ |website=Peter Watson |access-date=6 November 2018}} In an interview with Noah Charney for The Daily Beast, he related that the investigation had so damaged Sotheby's reputation that people he knew in the London art world wouldn't speak to him for years afterwards.{{cite news |last1=Charney |first1=Noah |title=Peter Watson Wants Nietzsche Back: 'How I Write' Interview |url=https://www.thedailybeast.com/peter-watson-wants-nietzsche-back-how-i-write-interview?ref=scroll |newspaper=The Daily Beast |access-date=6 November 2018 |language=en |date=3 July 2012}} In a 2000 article for the New Statesman he argued that forgeries in the antiquities trade remained a serious problem, with fake ancient artefacts even making their way into major museums, aided by curators who knew little of archaeology and were liable to be hoodwinked by corrupt dealers.{{cite web |title=How forgeries corrupt our top museums |url=https://www.newstatesman.com/node/193827 |website=New Statesman |access-date=17 February 2019}}

A third expose of the art world, The Medici Conspiracy: The Illicit Journey of Looted Antiquities, from Italy's Tomb Raiders to the World's Greatest Museums, which he co-wrote with Cecilia Todeschini, was published in 2006. The book detailed the criminal career of Italian art dealer, Giacomo Medici, and his several decades spent supplying museum with illegally excavated and smuggled antiquities.{{cite journal |last1=Todeschini |first1=Cecilia |last2=Watson |first2=Peter |last3=Eakin |first3=Hugh |title='The Medici Conspiracy': An Exchange |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2006/07/13/the-medici-conspiracy-an-exchange/ |journal=New York Review of Books |access-date=17 February 2019 |language=en |date=13 July 2006|volume=53 |issue=12 }} Watson had given evidence at the trial of Medici. Watson and Todeschini were criticised by Hugh Eakin in the New York Review of Books for failing to speak to any of the defendants in the Medici investigation, including former J. Paul Getty Museum curator Marion True - although Watson claimed that none of the defendants would talk, forcing him to rely on documents given to him by the Italian investigators.

Between 1997 and 2007, Watson was a research associate at the Illicit Antiquities Research Centre, part of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at Cambridge. In 2009 he took part in an Intelligence Squared debate in Hong Kong. Alongside the archaeologist Colin Renfrew he spoke against the motion 'Cultural Treasures Belong in Their Country of Origin'.{{cite web |title=Finders, Not Keepers! |url=http://www.intelligencesquared.asia/hong-kong-debates/finders-not-keepers.html |website=Intelligence Squared Asia |access-date=17 February 2019}} He has published some twenty books, including The German Genius, published by Simon & Schuster in 2010.Peter Watson, Modern Mind: An intellectual history of the 20th century (2001) {{ISBN|0-06-008438-3}}{{Cite web|url=https://peterwatsonauthor.com/biography/|title=Biography|website=Peter Watson, author}}

Watson is an atheist, and is particularly critical of monotheism.{{cite web |title=Peter Watson |url=https://ffrf.org/news/day/dayitems/item/14381-peter-watson |website=Freedom From Religion Foundation |date=23 April 1980 |access-date=6 November 2018 |language=en-gb}} He has argued that psychotherapy has become a substitute for religion, and that people more often seek therapy as a way to find meaning in their lives than to treat mental illness.{{cite web |title=The Significance of Our Insignificance |url=https://samharris.org/the-significance-of-our-insignificance/ |website=Sam Harris |access-date=6 November 2018 |date=10 March 2014}} He is a member of the Reform Club and describes himself as a Social Democrat politically.

• {{cite book | last = Watson | first = Peter | title = The French Mind: 400 Years of Romance, Revolution and Renewal | publisher = Simon & Schuster | location = New York | year = 2022 | isbn = 9781471128974 }}
• {{cite book | last = Watson | first = Peter | title = Fallout: Conspiracy, Cover-Up and the Deceitful Case for the Atom Bomb | publisher = Simon & Schuster | location = New York | year = 2018 | isbn = 9781471164507 }}
• {{cite book | last = Watson | first = Peter | title = Convergence: The Deepest Idea in the Universe | publisher = Simon & Schuster | location = New York | year = 2016 | isbn = 9781471129025 }}
• {{cite book | last = Watson | first = Peter | title = The Age of Nothing: How We Have Sought to Live Since the Death of God | publisher = Simon & Schuster | location = New York | year = 2014 | isbn = 978-1476754314 }} (Published in the United States as "The Age of Atheists: How We Have Sought to Live Since the Death of God").
• {{cite book | last = Watson | first = Peter | title = The Great Divide: Nature and Human Nature in the Old World and the New | publisher = HarperCollins | location = New York | year = 2012 | isbn = 9780061672453 }}
• {{cite book |last= Watson|first= Peter|title= The German Genius: Europe's Third Renaissance, the Second Scientific Revolution, and the Twentieth Century|year= 2010|publisher= Harper Perennial|location= New York | isbn= 978-0-06-076023-6 }}
• {{cite book |last= Watson|first= Peter|title= Ideas: a History, from Fire to Freud|year= 2009|publisher= The Folio Society|location= 2 vols, London}}
• {{cite book |last= Watson|first= Peter|title= Ideas: a History from Wittgenstein to the World Wide Web|year= 2009|publisher= The Folio Society|location= 2 vols, London}}
• {{cite book|last= Watson|first= Peter|author2= Cecilia Todeschini|title= The Medici Conspiracy: The Illicit Journey of Looted Antiquities—From Italy's Tomb Raiders to the World's Greatest Museums|year= 2007|publisher= PublicAffairs/Perseus Books|location= Jackson, TN|isbn= 978-1-58648-402-6|url= https://archive.org/details/mediciconspiracy00wats}}
• {{cite book |last= Watson|first= Peter|title= Ideas: a History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud|year= 2006|publisher= Harper Perennial|location= New York|isbn= 0-06-093564-2}}
• {{cite book |last= Watson|first= Peter|title= Ideas: a History, from Fire to Freud|year= 2005|publisher= Weidenfeld & Nicolson|location= London}}
• {{cite book|last= Watson|first= Peter|title= The Modern Mind: An Intellectual History of the 20th Century|year= 2001|publisher= Harper Perennial|isbn= 0060194138|url= https://archive.org/details/modernmindintell00wats}}
• {{cite book |last= Watson|first= Peter|title= A Terrible Beauty: the People and Ideas that Shaped the Modern Mind|year= 2000|publisher= Weidenfeld & Nicolson}}
• {{cite book|last= Watson|first= Peter|title= Sotheby's: The Inside Story|year= 1998|publisher= Random House|location= New York|isbn= 0-679-41403-7|url= https://archive.org/details/sothebysinsidest00pete}}
• {{cite book|last1=Petrova|first1=Ada|last2=Watson|first2=Peter|author-link2=Peter Watson (intellectual historian)|year=1995|title=The Death of Hitler: The Full Story with New Evidence from Secret Russian Archives|publisher=W.W. Norton & Company|isbn=978-0-393-03914-6|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780393039146}}
• {{cite book |last= Watson|first= Peter|title= Wisdom and Strength, the Biography of a Renaissance Masterpiece|year= 1989|publisher= Doubleday|location= New York|isbn= 0-09-174637-X}}
• {{cite book |last= Watson|first= Peter|title= Landscape of Lies (Felony & Mayhem Mysteries)|year= 1989|publisher= Felony & Mayhem Press|location= New York|isbn= 1-933397-18-7}}
• {{cite book |last= Watson|first= Peter|title= The Caravaggio Conspiracy|url= https://archive.org/details/caravaggioconspi00wats|url-access= registration|year= 1984|publisher= Penguin/Doubleday|location= New York|isbn= 0-14-007635-2}}
• {{cite book|last= Watson|first= Peter|title= War on the Mind: the Military Uses and Abuses of Psychology|year= 1978|publisher= Basic Books|location= New York|isbn= 0-465-09065-6|url= https://archive.org/details/waronmind00wats}}

{{reflist}}

• A video featuring Peter Watson at Durham University's Institute of Advanced Study (Durham), titled The Enchantment of Ideas, can be found [http://www.dur.ac.uk/ias/events/enchantment_of_ideas/ here].
• Another video featuring Peter Watson giving a lecture in New York on the theft of antiquities can be found [https://web.archive.org/web/20090228174656/http://savingantiquities.org/podcasts.php here].

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Watson, Peter}}

Category:1943 births

Category:British historians

Category:British male journalists

Category:Living people

Category:Intellectual historians

Category:Alumni of University College, Durham

Category:British investigative journalists

Category:Sapienza University of Rome alumni

Category:British social democrats