Background
He was born in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire.
He was born in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire.
He worked as a correspondent in turns for Reuters, Radio Free Europe, The Economist, The Financial Times, and again for The Economist. His 1993 book Goodbye Germany, occasioned by German reunification, was an international bestseller, and in 1998 he wrote Mahler: a Biography of the Austrian composer. He died in Königswinter, North Rhine-Westphalia at the age of 66, on 12 June 2008, on the very day his final book The Wagner Clan was published.