The History Thieves: Secrets, Lies and the Shaping of a Modern Nation
Ian Cobain

• Sunday 11 June 2017, 12.45PM to 1.35pm
• Free admission
  Booking required
• Ron Cooke Hub, University of York (map|getting to campus)
• Wheelchair accessible

Event details

In 1889, the first Official Secrets Act was passed, creating an offence of 'breach of official trust'. Ian Cobain, author of The History Thieves: Secrets, Lies and the Shaping of a Modern Nation, discusses how this has allowed successive governments to be selective about what they choose to share with the public. Learn why he believes this has left us with a distorted and incomplete understanding, not just of the workings of the state, but of our nation's culture and its past.

Join Ian as he offers a fresh appraisal of some of the key moments in British history since the end of World War II, including: the measures taken to conceal the existence of Bletchley Park and its successor, GCHQ, for three decades; the unreported wars fought during the 1960s and 1970s; and the hidden links with terrorist cells during the Troubles.

About the speaker

Ian Cobain was born in Liverpool in 1960. He has been a journalist since the early 1980s and is currently an investigative reporter with the Guardian. His inquiries into the UK's involvement in torture since 9/11 have won a number of major awards, including the Martha Gellhorn Prize and the Paul Foot Award for investigative journalism. He has also won two Amnesty International media awards and a human rights award from Liberty. His first book, Cruel Britannia, won the Total Politics Award for Debut Political Book of the Year.

Waterstones

Books will be available to buy from the Waterstones' stall at this event.

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