George Bubb Dangerfield (28 October 1904 – 27 December 1986) was a British-born American journalist, historian, and the literary editor ofVanity Fair from 1933 to 1935. He is known primarily for his bookThe Strange Death of Liberal England (1935), a classic account of how theLiberal Party in Great Britain ruined itself in dealing with the House of Lords,women's suffrage, theIrish question, andlabour unions, 1906–1914. His book on the United States in the early 19th century,The Era of Good Feelings, won the 1953Pulitzer Prize for History.

Dangerfield was born inNewbury, Berkshire, England, and educated atForest School, Walthamstow (then in Essex). His first memory, he wrote in his thirties, was "of being held up to a window and shownHalley's Comet" in 1910.^[1] In 1927 he received his B.A. fromHertford College, Oxford. In 1930 he moved to the United States, married Mary Lou Schott in 1941, and became an American citizen in 1943.^[2]

Dangerfield'sThe Strange Death of Liberal England (1935) is an account of the failure of the Liberals to deal effectively with increasingly vehement demands from Irish Unionists and Irish Nationalists, industrial workers, andsuffragettes. It was not given much attention by academic historians when it first appeared, but it has gained admirers because of its lively style and its trenchant analysis.^{[citation needed]} In 1941 Dangerfield publishedVictoria's Heir: The Education of a Prince, a work on the early life ofEdward VII.

After serving with the US Army's102nd Infantry Division during World War II,^[3] Dangerfield returned to the study of history and wroteThe Era of Good Feelings (1952), a history ofthe period between the presidencies ofJames Madison andAndrew Jackson, from the start of theWar of 1812 to the start of Jackson's administration on 4 March 1829. Dangerfield characterises the period as constituting the transition "from the great dictum that central government is best when it governs least to the great dictum that central government must sometimes intervene strongly on behalf of the weak and the oppressed and the exploited."^[4] The book won the 1953Bancroft Prize and the 1953Pulitzer Prize for History.^[5] He followed up his work on this period withThe Awakening of American Nationalism: 1815–1828 (1965), an instalment in Harper & Row's series "The New American Nation".^[6]

AGuggenheim Fellowship in 1970^[7] remunerated Dangerfield for an extended research stay in Europe. In the UK and in Ireland, he collected material for his last book,The Damnable Question: A Study of Anglo-Irish Relations, which was a finalist for theNational Book Critics Circle Award in General Nonfiction in 1976.^[8]

Dangerfield was the father of two daughters,^[how?] Mary Jo Lewis and Hilary Fabre, and a son, Anthony.^[9] He died of leukaemia inSanta Barbara, California, where he had taught for a few years at theUniversity of California, Santa Barbara.

• If the novel can go to history, history can go to the novel, at least to the extent of bringing a creative imagination to bear upon its characters.... History, which reconciles incompatibles, and balances probabilities, by its very nature eventually reaches the reality of fiction. And that is the highest reality of all.^[10]
• When codes, when religions, when ideas cease to move forward, it is always in some shining illusion that an alarmed humanity attempts to take refuge.—The Strange Death of Liberal England, 343 (Stanford University Press ed., 1997)

• Bengal Mutiny: The Story of theSepoy Rebellion (1933)^[11]
• The Strange Death of Liberal England (1935)ISBN 978-0-8047-2930-7online free
• Victoria's Heir: The Education of a Prince (1941)ISBN 978-0-09-458750-2^[12]
• 102d thru Germany: WWII Unit History, 102nd Infantry Division(1945) 70-page booklet prepared and designed with the assistance of T/4[Sergeant] George B. Dangerfield
• The Era of Good Feelings (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1952)ISBN 978-0-929587-14-1.^[13] 1953Pulitzer Prize for History.
• ChancellorRobert R. Livingston of New York 1746–1813 (1960)^[14]
• "The Awakening of American Nationalism 1815–1828" (1965)ISBN 978-0-88133-823-2^[15]
• The Damnable Question: A History of Anglo-Irish Relations (1976)ISBN 978-0-7043-3252-2^[16]

• 1904 births
• 1986 deaths
• English emigrants to the United States
• Alumni of Hertford College, Oxford
• People from Newbury, Berkshire
• Pulitzer Prize for History winners
• Bancroft Prize winners
• People educated at Forest School, Walthamstow
• Deaths from leukemia in California
• 20th-century American journalists
• English historians
• English male journalists
• 20th-century American historians
• 20th-century American male writers
• 20th-century American male journalists
• 20th-century British male journalists

• Webarchive template wayback links
• CS1 errors: ISBN date
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use British English from November 2017
• All Wikipedia articles written in British English
• Use dmy dates from November 2017
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from February 2025
• Wikipedia articles needing clarification from May 2020