Censoring History

Documents are the lifeblood of historians, enabling them to build a picture of the past but Andrew Lownie argues that our history is being distorted, even censored by governments in defiance of Public Records Acts.

A campaigner for greater access of information, he draws from the research for his prize-winning and best-selling biographies of Guy Burgess, Dickie and Edwina Mountbatten, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and his forthcoming Duke and Duchess of York to give examples of how records are being withheld and even destroyed with no public record kept of the file.

He will also discuss his campaign to secure the release of the Mountbatten’s personal diaries and letters and Edwina’s correspondence with Nehru, collection bought by the University of Southampton with almost £5 million of public funds and only made available after his own legal efforts, which cost him personally almost £500,000.