Faith, Nicholas 1933-

PERSONAL:

Born 1933.

ADDRESSES:

Home—London, England.

CAREER:

Writer. Sunday Times, London, England, business news editor.

WRITINGS:

The Infiltrators: The European Business Invasion of America, Hamilton (London, England), 1971, Dutton (New York, NY), 1972.

Money Matters, Hamilton (London, England), 1973.

Wankel: The Curious Story behind the Revolutionary Engine, Stein & Day (New York, NY), 1975, published as The Wankel Engine: The Story of the Revolutionary Rotary Engine, Allen & Unwin (London, England), 1976.

The Winemasters, Harper (New York, NY), 1978.

Safety in Numbers: The Mysterious World of Swiss Banking, Viking Press (New York, NY), 1982.

Victorian Vineyard: Chateau Loudenne and the Gilbeys, Constable (London, England), 1983.

Sold: The Rise and Fall of the House of Sotheby, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1985.

Cognac, David R. Godine (Boston, MA), 1986, Mitchell Beazley (London, England), 2004.

The Simon & Schuster Pocket Guide to Cognac and Other Brandies, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1987.

The Story of Champagne: The History and Pleasures of the Most Celebrated of Wines, illustrations by John Lawrence, Facts on File (New York, NY), 1989.

The World the Railways Made, Bodley Head (London, England), 1990.

Château Margaux, photographs by Michel Guillard, Vendome Press (New York, NY), 1991, revised English language edition, Rizzoli International Publishers (New York, NY), 2005.

Château Beychevelle, photographs by Michel Guillard, Orban (Paris, France), 1991.

Classic Trucks, Motorbooks International (Osceola, WI), 1995.

Classic Ships: Romance and Reality, Motorbooks International (Osceola, WI), 1996.

(With Ian Wisniewski) Classic Vodka, Prion Books (London, England), 1997.

Black Box: The Air-Crash Detectives: Why Air Safety Is No Accident, Motorbooks International (Osceola, WI), 1997.

Classic Trains, Boxtree (London, England), 1998.

Crash: The Limits of Car Safety, Boxtree (London, England), 1998.

Classic Brandy, Prion (London, England), 2000.

Blaze: The Forensics of Fire, St. Martin's (New York, NY), 2000.

Derail: Why Trains Crash, Channel 4 (London, England), 2001.

Liquid Gold: The Story of Australian Wine and Its Makers, PanMacmillan Australia (Sydney, Australia), 2002, Mitchell Beazley (London, England), 2003.

Burgundy and Its Wines, photographs by Andy Katz, Duncan Baird (London, England), 2002.

A Very Different Country: A Typically English Revolution, Sinclair-Stevenson (London, England), 2002.

The Bronfmans: The Rise and Fall of the House of Seagram, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Nicholas Faith is the author of books on the subjects of transportation, finance, and wine. The Infiltrators: The European Business Invasion of America discusses the increasing European investment in America by such companies as Unilever, Shell, Phillips, Schweppes, Olivetti, and others. According to Faith, European companies did this so quietly that Americans were not initially aware of how much they held, but this awareness was growing at the time the book was published. In the Library Journal, Paul Wasserman wrote that the book was "a valuable contribution to a very little documented area." A Booklist reviewer called the book "an unusual and readable account."

Safety in Numbers: The Mysterious World of Swiss Banking explores the role of Swiss banks and their secret accounts during World War II, and presents arguments for and against that secrecy. In the Economist, a reviewer wrote: "This book is as interesting for what it reveals about Swiss society and character as for its banking revelations." Jonathan Steinberg wrote in the Times Literary Supplement that the book "demolishes many of the myths surrounding the famous banking secrecy and the legends about numbered accounts."

Sold: The Rise and Fall of the House of Sotheby chronicles the story of the famous auction house. It is part biography of Peter C. Wilson, the house's director from 1958 to 1979, part history, and part essay. In the New York Times Book Review, Douglas C. McGill commented that Faith's "reporting is careful, and provides a good behind-the-scenes look at the auction house business." John G. Tucker observed in Interior Design: "The author is a good reporter and a good storyteller and gives us finely drawn portraits of some of the art world's principal players."

In The Story of Champagne: The History and Pleasures of the Most Celebrated of Wines, Faith surveys the history of Champagne—both the region in France where the drink originated, and the history of the drink itself. Ranging from the seventeenth century to today, the book also tells how to select and enjoy a good champagne, and critiques all the major producers' products. Cognac, a coffee-table book, takes a similar look at the world's most highly-regarded brandy and includes lavish photographs. Faith tells how cognac was developed, how it is produced and by whom, and describes how to identify the finest cognacs. Château Margaux examines one great vineyard, providing a detailed history over the past three centuries. In the Times Literary Supplement, Julian Jeffs wrote that the book combines "great wine with fascinating topics of social, architectural, and agronomic history, subjects well-suited to the author."

Burgundy and Its Wines, with photographs by Andy Katz, offers a history of the region, including descriptions of the local towns, the wines produced, and tales of the local merchants and wine brokers that connect the region to the outside wine market. Caroline Turner, writing for M2 Best Books, called the volume a "great coffee-table book for the wine lover, and those interest in Burgundy's culture and history."

Faith combines his interests in business and financial dynasties with his fondness for the history of fine liquor in The Bronfmans: The Rise and Fall of the House of Seagram. The famous family has a history that dates back to American prohibition, when they were responsible for bringing quantities of liquor over the border from Canada to supply individuals looking for something of a superior quality to the typical bathtub gin. From there, the Bronfmans rose in status, attempting to ignore their origins as bootleggers in favor of building a more elitist reputation. The volume traces the Bronfmans' history from their early days, through their successes, and up to their modern-day business ventures. Unlike previous books about the Seagram's empire, Faith's effort focuses primarily on Edgar Bronfman, the heir apparent to the fortune and the business, and his son, Edgar, Jr. A Kirkus Reviews critic remarked of the book that "a potentially lively human-interest story of three generations of very rich, largely unpleasant men is marred by content and style better suited to a trade publication." Caroline Geck, writing for the Library Journal, found Faith's effort "a thorough history of Vivendi Universal and the Bronfman empire through 2005."

Faith has also written several books about transportation, including The World the Railways Made, which describes not only the history of railways, but also their far-reaching effects on human history and individual lives. In the Times Literary Supplement, a reviewer commented that "Faith writes engagingly and maintains our attention not only by the breadth of his vision … but by his telling examples and interest in leading personalities.

In Blaze: The Forensics of Fire Faith branches off into a new subject area as he describes techniques law enforcement investigators use to determine the origins of fires and examines the investigations of some of the most disastrous fires of the 1980s. A Publishers Weekly reviewer remarked that the book covers "an intrinsically riveting topic, one that combines police work, physics, design and the social sciences."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Antioch Review, fall, 1979, review of The Winemasters, pp. 495-496.

Booklist, September 15, 1972, review of The Infiltrators: The European Business Invasion of America, p. 54; November 15, 1975, review of Wankel: The Curious Story behind the Revolutionary Engine, p. 421; December 15, 2000, Mark Knoblauch, review of Classic Brandy, p. 770.

Discover, October, 2000, Eric Powell, review of Blaze: The Forensics of Fire, p. 105.

Economist, August 7, 1982, review of Safety in Numbers: The Mysterious World of Swiss Banking, p. 767.

History Today, March, 1997, John Walton, review of The World the Railways Made, p. 55.

Interior Design, November, 1986, John G. Tucker, review of Sold: The Rise and Fall of the House of Sotheby, p. 282.

Kirkus Reviews, May 1, 2006, review of The Bronfmans: The Rise and Fall of the House of Seagram, p. 446.

Library Journal, June 15, 1972, review of Paul Wasserman, The Infiltrators, p. 2159; May 15, 2006, Caroline Geck, review of The Bronfmans, p. 108.

M2 Best Books, September 30, 2002, Caroline Turner, review of Burgundy and Its Wines.

New Yorker, October 2, 2000, Leo Cary, review of Blaze, p. 34.

New York Review of Books, July 17, 1986, Joseph Alsop, "Art into Money," p. 42.

New York Times Book Review, May 18, 1986, Douglas C. McGill, review of Sold, p. 15; May 31, 1987, review of Cognac, p. 50.

Publishers Weekly, February 7, 1972, review of The Infiltrators, p. 94; June 16, 1975, review of Wankel, p. 79; September 13, 1991, review of The World the Railways Made, p. 68; June 5, 2000, review of Blaze, p. 79.

Times Literary Supplement, September 8, 1978, Theodore Zeldin, "The Case of Bordeaux," p. 986; April 17, 1981, Julian Jeffs, "Best Bordeaux," p. 426; August 6, 1982, Jonathan Steinberg, "The Gnomes and How They Grew," p. 853; May 6, 1994, review of The World the Railways Made, p. 28.

Washington Post Book World, February 18, 1990, Charles Monaghan, "Life Is a Cabernet," p. 10.

Wines & Vines, March, 1990, Philip E. Hiaring, review of The Story of Champagne: The History and Pleasures of the Most Celebrated of Wines, p. 7.