Discover the Best Books Written by Theodore Dalrymple

Anthony Malcolm Daniels (born 11 October 1949), also known by the pen name Theodore Dalrymple (/dælˈrɪmpəl/), is a conservative English cultural critic, prison physician, and psychiatrist. He worked in a number of Sub-Saharan African countries as well as in the East End of London. Before his retirement in 2005, he worked at City Hospital, Birmingham, and Winson Green Prison in inner-city Birmingham, England.

Daniels is a contributing editor to City Journal, published by the Manhattan Institute, where he is the Dietrich Weismann Fellow. In addition to City Journal, his work has appeared in: The British Medical Journal, The Times, New Statesman, The Observer, The Daily Telegraph, The Spectator, The Salisbury Review, National Review, New English Review, The Wall Street Journal, and Axess magasin. He is the author of a number of books, including Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass (2001), Our Culture, What's Left of It (2005), and Spoilt Rotten: The Toxic Cult of Sentimentality (2010).

In his writing, Daniels frequently argues that the leftist views prevalent within Western intellectual circles minimize the responsibility of individuals for their own actions and undermine traditional mores, contributing to the formation within prosperous countries of an underclass afflicted by endemic violence, criminality, sexually transmitted diseases, welfare dependency, and drug abuse. Much of Dalrymple's writing is based on his experience of working with criminals and the mentally ill.

In 2011, Dalrymple was awarded the Prize for Liberty by the Flemish classical-liberal think-tank Libera! Daniels was born in Kensington, London. His father was a Communist businessman of Russian ancestry, while his Jewish mother was born in Germany. She came to England as a refugee from the Nazi regime. His grandfather had served as a major in the German Army during WW1.

His work as a physician took him to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Tanzania, South Africa, and the Gilbert Islands (now Kiribati). He returned to the United Kingdom in 1990, where he worked in London and Birmingham. In 1991, he made an extended appearance on British television under the name Theodore Dalrymple. On 23 February, he took part in an After Dark discussion called "Prisons: No Way Out" alongside former gangster Tony Lambrianou, a Greek journalist and writer Taki Theodoracopulos, and others.

In 2005, he retired early as a consultant psychiatrist. He has a house in Bridgnorth, Shropshire, and also a house in France. Regarding his pseudonym "Theodore Dalrymple," he wrote that he "chose a name that sounded suitably dyspeptic, that of a gouty old man looking out of the window of his London club, a port in hand, lamenting the degenerating state of the world."

He is an atheist but has criticized anti-theism and says that "To regret religion is, in fact, to regret our civilization and its monuments, its achievements, and its legacy." Raised in a non-religious Jewish home, he began doubting the existence of a God at age nine. He became an atheist in response to a moment in a school assembly.

Daniels has also used other pen names. As "Edward Theberton," has written articles for The Spectator from countries in Africa, including Mozambique. He used the name "Thursday Msigwa" when he wrote Filosofa's Republic, a satire of Tanzania under Julius Nyerere. He may also have used another pen name in addition to his bona fide name.