Biography

Philipp Blom (1970) is a historian and author of several books on history, philosophy, and politics, as well as two novels. He also works as a radio presenter, scriptwriter, and public speaker.Philipp was born in Hamburg and grew up in Detmold, in northern Germany.
After studying history, philosophy, and Jewish studies in Vienna and Oxford, he gained a D.Phil. on nationalism. During this period, he also worked in journalism, taught at a high school, and wrote a novel. Like many of his subsequent books, it was written in English and translated into German by himself.
From 1997 to 2001, Blom and his wife, the writer Veronica Buckley, lived in London, where Philipp initially worked as an editor in a publishing house and as a foreign correspondent for German, Swiss, and British newspapers and magazines (Guardian, Independent, TLS, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Neue Zürcher Zeitung) and for radio stations (BBC, Deutschlandfunk). In 2001 the couple moved to Paris to concentrate on their books. Since 2007 they have lived in Vienna.
Alongside his work as a historian, novelist, and philosopher, Philipp presents the program "Punkt eins" on the Austrian radio station Ö1. He is also the host of BlomCast, a podcast on turning points in history, which he has been producing since 2023. He has curated exhibitions for, among others, the Wien Museum and the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, where Philipp was invited to work for one year in 2010. Since 2025, he has been hosting the MQ Talks, a conversation series at the Museumsquartier in Vienna, which he runs together with the Bruno Kreisky Forum. Since 2024, he has been artistic director of the Dachstein Dialoge, International Festival for Tolerance, in Austria.
Lecture tours and festivals take Philipp throughout Europe as well as to the USA and South America, particularly Colombia and Mexico. As a scriptwriter and historical consultant, Philipp worked on the documentary film "Salieri – The Man Behind the Myth" (ORF/ARTE, 2025). Together with the renowned Cuarteto Quiroga, he developed the radio play "Vier Stürme, ein Sturm" ("Four Storms, One Storm"), broadcast on Ö1 in 2025.
Philipp Blom's books combine historical research, philosophical inquiry, and an essayistic, literary approach. Among his most successful recent works are "Nature's Mutiny" (2019), and "Subjugate the Earth" (2025). His novel "Thieves of Light" was published in 2021. Earlier bestsellers such as "A Wicked Company," about the radical Enlightenment, and "The Vertigo Years" and "Fracture," dealing with the cultural history of the early twentieth century, have been translated into sixteen languages.
Philipp's wide-ranging work and research interests have received numerous accolades. He has won several international prizes (Premis Terenci Moix, Barcelona; Groene Waterman Prijs, Antwerp; NDR Kultur Buchpreis, Wolfenbüttel). In 2024 he was awarded the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, and in 2026 he received the Lessing Prize for Criticism in Germany. From 2009 to 2010 he was Fellow of the IFK, and in 2017 Visiting Fellow at the IWM, both in Vienna. In 2018 he opened the prestigious Salzburg Festival with a widely-discussed speech on the future of the Enlightenment in a time of climate change. In 2019 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the university of Groningen.
Having wanted to become a violinist early in life, Philipp also continues to make music.

SHORT VERSION
Philipp Blom (1970) is a historian and author of several books on history, philosophy, and politics. His works have been translated into sixteen languages. He presents "Punkt eins" on Ö1 and hosts the BlomCast podcast, and has been artistic director of the Dachstein Dialoge since 2024. In 2024 he was awarded the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, and in 2026 the Lessing Prize for Criticism. He lectures throughout Europe, the USA, and South America.