Keith Lowe is the author of several major works of history. His first book, Inferno, was a critically-acclaimed study of the bombing of Hamburg in 1943. His second book, Savage Continent, became a Sunday Times top ten bestseller, and went on to win both the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History and Italy’s national Cherasco History Prize. It is now a standard work on the wave of violence and revenge that swept Europe after the war.The Fear and the Freedom is an intimate history of the long-term consequences of the Second World War, and the shadow that it still casts over our lives today. It was shortlisted for the Historical Writers’ Association Non-fiction Crown, and has been adapted as a 12-part radio series in the Czech Republic. He has also written books on WWII monuments, and the bombing of Hamburg in 1943.

 

His latest book, Naples 1944, describes the liberation of Italy, and the political and economic chaos that followed. Naples was the first major city to be liberated by the Allies, and suffered a series of crises, including hunger, sexual exploitation, a typhus epidemic and a volcanic eruption. This is the first book in the English language to describe the history of Naples during this crucial period of the Second World War.

 

Lowe regularly speaks on TV and radio, and he often lectures on postwar history at venues across Europe and North America. He has written for a variety of newspapers and journals, including the Daily Telegraph, The Times, the Wall Street Journal, El Paìs and the NeueZürcherZeitung. He serves on the historical advisory board for Liberation Route Europe, and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

 

He lives in London with his wife and two children.