Madeleine Bunting was born in North Yorkshire. After studying history at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, she won a Knox postgraduate fellowship to study and teach history at Harvard University. She worked for an independent television production company joining the Guardian as a reporter in 1989. She became the newspaper's religious affairs correspondent in 1995.
Madeleine Bunting is a superb chronicler of what happened - if you want a classic example of the dilemmas of Resistance, here it is. -- Professor Norman Stone The Times A masterly work of profound research and reflection, objective and humane -- Hugh Trevor-Roper Sunday Telegraph I am full of admiration for this book. By careful research and sensitive use of light and shade, Ms Bunting holds the reader's attention through an uncomfortable passage in our history - and one which we have been most reluctant to inform ourselves -- Alan Clark Guardian Excellently researched... This book...is an important historical document, if an uncomfortable one, in the understanding of our national character -- John Mortimer Sunday Times [An] excellent book...thoroughly unflinching, fair-minded, humane and sensitive -- Jonathan Keates Evening Standard