How did you become a writer? Boarding school! I was sent to a Catholic prep school in North Yorkshire when I was nine. It was a shock to the system but I got into the habit of writing long, effusive letters home. People always appreciated my stories and the flashes of mordant humor and I realized it was something I enjoyed. As a historian, my writing has always been at the more playful end of the spectrum, so when I made the shift from academic publishing to writing for a general audience in One Nation Under Guns, the process was natural.

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.). I was fortunate to have a tutor at Oxford who embraced my rather energetic and free-flowing style. He warned me about relying on too few sources when writing an essay, but encouraged my tendency to “imbibe” a book and transport the ideas onto the page. For me, it was always more important to be inspired or provoked than to be apprised of the “state of the literature,” so I often found myself reading older, less fashionable authors, who may not have been on the reading lists. A book by Robert Young entitled, Darwin’s Metaphor, had a big impression on me as an undergraduate, showing the layers of history and philosophy behind the publication of On the Origin of Species, and tearing down the barriers between science and literature. Among American historians, I have always enjoyed Richard Hofstadter and Jill Lepore – exuberant writers who refused to stay in their lane. History has always been a form of activism for me, if only to interrogate received wisdom. There was a mischief to someone like Hofstadter that was infectious.

When and where do you write? In my quiet little study surrounded by trees.

What are you working on now? I’m writing a history of patriotism and democracy, to appear around the 250thanniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026. The idea is to explore the ways patriotism operates as an “established religion” in a notionally secular United States, prompting us to behave in ways that are not always democratic.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? Not in the technical sense of having nothing to say – just a certain fatigue and loss of sparkle when I have been working on something for too long.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received? I can’t remember who said it, but a phrase that has stuck with me is “emulate, don’t imitate.” As a historian, I always feel that there is a fine line between drawing energy and inspiration from your sources and becoming overly dependent – in style and content. If I can hear someone else’s voice in my head, or if the phrase does not feel like my own, I have to start again. Learn from others, but be yourself, is another way to put it.

What’s your advice to new writers? Say what you want to say, and let the style take care of itself. There is always a time for editing and pruning, but it is important not to get caught up in the craft. Try not to be self-conscious. If you can enjoy the process, so will the reader.

Dominic Erdozain is a historian of ideas and the author of One Nation Under Guns: How Gun Culture Distorts our History and Threatens our Democracy (published by Crown in 2024). A graduate of Oxford and Cambridge, he taught history at King’s College London for seven years before moving to Atlanta with his wife and three children in 2012. He is currently a visiting scholar at Emory University and writing a new history of patriotism in the United States, for Crown.