Contributors

Alex Wheatle (1963-2025) was born to Jamaican parents living in London. He spent most of his childhood in a children's home, which he left at 14 to live in a hostel in Brixton. At 18, he was involved in the Brixton uprising and went to prison for 3 months. On his release, he continued to perform as a DJ and MC under the name Yardman Irie, moving in the early '90s on to the performance poetry circuit as The Brixton Bard. His second novel, East of Acre Lane, won the London New Writers Award (2000).

Clive Webb is an award-winning historian based at the University of Sussex, where he is Professor of Modern American History and is the recipient of a Leverhulme Fellowship. He has written for numerous magazines and newspapers, including the Guardian, Independent and The New York Times. He has also contributed to news programmes and documentaries on radio and television in Britain and the United States.

Jonathan White is Professor of Politics at the London School of Economics. Based at LSE's European Institute, he has published widely on democracy and the politics of emergency. He has written for the Guardian and New Statesman, and received the British Academy Brian Barry Prize for Excellence in Political Science.

Karolina Watroba is a research fellow at All Souls College, University of Oxford, where she works on modern literature and film across eight European languages and beyond, with a focus on German, English, and Polish.

Bernard Wasserstein has been a historian of modern Jewish and Middle Eastern history for over thirty years. He taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and was Professor of History at Brandeis University in Massachusetts. From 1996 to 2000 he served as President of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies; and is now Professor of History at Chicago University.

Bernard Wasserstein has been a historian of the Israeli-Arab conflict for the past thirty years. He taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. From 1982 to 1996 he was Professor of History at Brandeis University in Massachusetts and from 1996 to 2000 he served as President of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. He was Professor of History at the University of Glasgow and is now Professor of History at Chicago. Divided Jerusalem (also published by Profile Books) aroused widespread comment and was particularly praised for its lucidity and objectivity.

David Watkin was Professor of Architectural History at the University of Cambridge. He has written major studies of architects like Soane and Thomas Hope and the influential polemic Architecture and Morality. He is now retired and lives in Chicago.

Nigel Watson graduated from Durham University with a degree in history before embarking on his career as a writer and consultant. He is the author of several company and educational histories including The Durham Difference, MGS: A History at 500 and The Hart of Waste. He lives with his wife and children in North Yorkshire.

Paul Watson is the youngest international football coach in the world. Before taking up coaching, he worked as a journalist for Football Italia. He lives in London.

Christian Weaver is an award-winning human rights barrister, social justice campaigner and author of The Law in 60 Seconds: A Pocket Guide to Your Rights. He has represented families in some of the country's most high-profile inquests, including that of Awaab Ishak, a toddler who tragically died in social housing due to prolonged exposure to mould. The case led to the creation of 'Awaab's Law' which directly benefits over 4 million social housing tenants.

In 2023 Christian was named Legal Aid Newcomer of the Year; he was listed in The Lawyer Hot 100 2024 and has been featured on nearly all UK major news platforms including BBC News, the Guardian and Radio 4. Concerned about the increasing number of people he knew being stopped and searched, in 2018 he created the YouTube series 'The Law in 60 Seconds' to inform people of their rights and make the law accessible; those videos have now been viewed thousands of times. Christian has worked at INQUEST and Liberty; currently he is instructed as a barrister on the Covid-19 Public Inquiry. Alongside this, he is touring the UK educating the public on their legal rights. He is from Nottingham and based in Manchester.

Bob Weber is a journalist and author based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Arthur De Weduwen is associate editor of the Universal Short Title Catalogue project at St Andrews. This is his fifth book.

William Weir was born in 1933 and is the fourth generation of the family to have worked for the Weir Group. He succeeded his father as the third Viscount Weir in 1976. In 1999 he retired from the company having worked in a number of positions and served as chairman for 24 years. Educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, he joined Weir's in 1958 after National Service in the Royal Navy.

His other business appointments have included being a member of the Court of the Bank of England, chairman of Balfour Beatty and C. P. Ships Ltd, and a director of British Steel Corporation, the British Bank of the Middle East and Canadian Pacific Railway. He has also been president of BEAMA, the trade association for the electrical manufacturing industries, and a member of the House of Lords Select Committee on Monetary Policy.

He is married and lives in Ayrshire, and has three children.

Michael Wex (born September 12, 1954) is a Canadian novelist, playwright, translator, lecturer, performer, and author of books on language and literature. His specialty is Yiddish and his book Born to Kvetch was a surprise bestseller in 2005. Wex lives in Toronto with his wife and daughter Sabina.
Michael Wex was born in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada to a family of descendants of Rebbes of Ciechanów and Stryków. He has taught at the University of Toronto and the University of Michigan.

Gregory White Smith is, with Steven Naifeh, the co-author of the Pulitzer Prize winning biography of Jackson Pollock (the basis for the film Pollock), which was also a finalist for the National Book Award and a NYT bestseller; and the co-author of Van Gogh.