David Kynaston was born in Aldershot in 1951. After graduating from New College Oxford, he studied at the London School of Economics. A professional historian, in addition to the four-volume The City of London, his works include King Labour: A History of the British Working Class, 1850-1914, histories of the Financial Times and the stockbrokers Cazenove & co., and the first two volumes in a planned history of Britain between 1945 and 1979, Austerity Britain, 1945-51 and Family Britain, 1951-57.