James Delbourgo

James Delbourgo (born 1972) is a writer and historian of science, collecting and museums. He is the James Westfall Thompson Chair and Distinguished Professor of History at Rutgers University.

Delbourgo was born in Britain to Italian parents and educated at Reigate Grammar School, the University of East Anglia, Christ's College, Cambridge, the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University. He previously taught at McGill University in Montreal, where he directed the program in History and Philosophy of Science; and was Visiting Professor of History of Science at Harvard in 2016.

His most recent book, ''Collecting the World'' (2017), explores the life and career of Hans Sloane, which culminated in the foundation of the British Museum in 1753. It is based on 15 years of research in Sloane's surviving London collections in collaboration with the British Museum, Natural History Museum and British Library. Published by Penguin in the UK and Belknap in the US, the book won four prizes, made four shortlists, and was named Book of the Week in the ''Guardian'', London ''Times'', ''Daily Mail'' and ''The Week'' Magazine, and one of ''Apollo Magazine'''s Books of the Year; featured in BBC Radio's ''Today'' Programme and NPR's Leonard Lopate Show, the British Museum and ''BBC History Magazine'' podcasts, ''Science Magazine'' and ''Smithsonian Magazine''; and reviewed in the ''New York Times'', ''New York Review of Books'', ''New Republic'', ''Financial Times'', the ''Spectator'', the ''Economist'', the ''Lancet'', ''Daily Telegraph'', ''Irish Times'', ''Nature Magazine'' and ''Art Quarterly''. Delbourgo has lectured on Sloane & the British Museum in the UK, Germany, Italy, France, Jamaica and the US.

Recent magazine essays range in subject from Arab world space programs to Russo-Asian de-extinction projects; and collecting from early modern Korea to Gilded Age America. He writes regularly for the ''Literary Review'' in London.

Current projects include a history of collectors entitled ''My Love's A Noble Madness'', forthcoming from W. W. Norton & Company (NY) and Quercus/ riverrun (London); a global approach to the history of science; and ''Divers Things'', on the cultural history of underwater exploration. Provided by Wikipedia