After working for twenty years as an investment analyst in London and Frankfurt, Adrian Phillips returned to university to study history, which has been a lifelong passion. His postgraduate thesis investigated the mechanisms of power at the top level of government and considered how major decisions can be taken far outside the regular democratic political process, hidden from public sight. He has put this understanding to full use in his books on the abdication of Edward VIII (The King Who Had to Go and The First Royal Media War), appeasement (Fighting Churchill, Appeasing Hitler) and rearmament (Rearming the RAF for the Second World War). He maintains a popular blog, Eighty Years Ago This Week, and appears as a commentator on TV and radio. He is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society.