Piers Brendon was born at Stratton in Cornwall on 21 December 1940. He was educated at Shrewsbury School, Shropshire, and Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he read History. He took a PhD for his thesis on "Hurrell Froude and the Oxford Movement". This was published, with much modification, in 1974.

Brendon has contributed widely to the British and American press and has done a good deal of work for television. He has prepared treatments and co-written scripts for a number of historical documentaries, including "Auschwitz and the Allies" (BBC), "Human Rights" (Thames) and "The Roots of Evil" (ITV). He was consultant and script-writer for the ITV's four part film "The Windsors" (broadcast in 1994 and 2000). Brendon acted as script consultant on a three part television series called "The Churchills" broadcast on ITV in May 1995. He contributed to the scripts of BBC TV's "People's Century" and wrote the scripts for two documentaries based on his book "The Dark Valley" (the documentaries were called "Did we have to fight?" and "The world we lost").

From 1965-78, Brendon was Lecturer in History, then Principal Lecturer and Head of Department, at what is now Anglia Polytechnic University. From 1979 onwards he has worked as a free-lance writer - books, journalism and television and from 1995 he has been a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge and was Keeper of the Churchill Archives (1995-2001).

Brendon's published works include: "Hurrell Froude and the Oxford Movement" (Elek, 1974); "Hawker of Morwenstow" (Cape, 1975); "Eminent Edwardians" (Secker, 1980); "The Life and Death of the Press Barons" (Secker, 1982); "Winston Churchill: A Brief Life" (Secker, 1984); "Ike: The Life and Times of Dwight D. Eisenhower" (Secker, 1987); "Thomas Cook: 150 Years of Popular Tourism" (Secker, 1991); "The Motoring Century" (Bloomsbury, 1997); "The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s" (Cape and Knopf, 2000).