John Tusa Audiobooks

The Nuremberg Trial, history marshalled by the broadcaster who ran the World Service

1 audiobook reviewed

★ 4.3/5 average

772 listener ratings

Who is John Tusa?

Sir John Tusa, born in 1936, is a British arts administrator and broadcast journalist whose CV reads like a tour of the commanding heights of British cultural life. He was a main presenter of BBC2’s Newsnight from 1980 to 1986, managing director of the BBC World Service from 1986 to 1993, and then ran the Barbican Arts Centre in the City of London from 1995 to 2007.

Retirement has not much interested him: from 2014 he has served as co-chairman of the European Union Youth Orchestra and chairman of the British Architecture Trust Board at RIBA. Few figures combine frontline journalism and top-table cultural leadership so completely, and the writing benefits from both.

John Tusa in audiobooks

Our catalogue includes The Nuremberg Trial, Tusa’s account of the landmark post-war trial of the Nazi leadership, and it plays to every strength of his background: a veteran of Newsnight and the World Service knows how to marshal complex material and keep an audience with him. Serious narrative history of this kind is one of audio’s most rewarding genres – and this subject, with its questions of justice, evidence and accountability, has lost none of its force.

For UK listeners who like their history rigorous but readable – assuming intelligence without demanding expertise – this is a strong and sobering pick.