SOURCE: “Big Trees, Tall Stories,” in New Statesman and Society, April 21, 1995, pp. 20–21.

In the following essay, Tonkin provides an overview of Schama's career, historical writings, and critical reception.

I first met Simon Schama last week, but he shocked me deeply more than 20 years ago. Already a rising star, the young Cambridge historian had come back to his old school to give a talk about Napoleon. For some reason, I didn't attend, but the reports next day had me worried. With all the assurance of a know-it-all teenager, I had grasped that the smart money in history now went on process, not personalities: the spinning jenny and the grain-price cycle, not the intrigue of elites. Yet here was an accredited whizz-kid snooping into the Emperor's intimate ailments, like some tabloid sleaze-hound.

Perhaps he was just teasing. When he went to speak at another school, some lordly sixth-former instructed him...