A ruthless satire of academic life, The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury is a witty campus novel and one of the most influential books of the 1970s.

Take a Valium. Have a party. Go on a demo. Shoot a soldier. Make a bang. Bed a friend. That’s your problem-solving system . . . But haven’t we tried all that?

Howard Kirk, native son of the Swinging Sixties, radical university lecturer, and one half of a very modern marriage, is throwing a party. The night will have all sorts of repercussions: for Henry Beamish, Howard’s desperate and easily neglected friend, and for Howard’s wife, promiscuous ’70s liberal and exhausted victim of motherhood.

Funny, disconcerting and provocative, this fiftieth anniversary edition of Bradbury's classic novel brilliantly satirizes a world of academic power struggles as his anti-hero seduces his way around campus. It also reveals a marriage in crisis and demonstrates the fragility of the human heart.

Now part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the very best of modern literature.

The funniest and best-written novel I have seen for a very long time -- Auberon Waugh
Grim wit, chill comedy and a fictional energy which is as imaginative as the tale is shocking -- A. S. Byatt
Malcolm Bradbury has come up with a novel that simply must be read -- Elizabeth Berridge * The Daily Telegraph *
Extremely witty . . . Bradbury writes brilliantly * The New York Times *
Very funny . . . a quite ruthless satire * Evening Standard *
Exhilarating . . . A book which captures for all time the spirit of an age -- Margaret Drabble

Malcolm Bradbury was a well-known novelist, critic and academic, and founder of the creative writing department at the University of East Anglia. He was the author of seven novels, including The History Man and Rates of Exchange, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He was awarded a knighthood in 2000 and died later the same year.