David Caute

John David Caute (born 16 December 1936 in Alexandria, Egypt) is a British author, novelist, playwright, historian and journalist.

Caute was educated at Edinburgh Academy, Wellington College, Wadham College, Oxford and St Antony's College, Oxford. A Henry Fellow at Harvard (1960–61), he was elected a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford in 1959, but resigned in 1965. From 1966 to 1985 Caute held various academic positions, including Reader at Brunel University, and Visiting Professor at New York University, Columbia University, University of California, Irvine, and Bristol University. He was Literary Editor of the New Statesman 1979-80, and Co-Chairman of the Writers' Guild of Great Britain, 1982. His novel Comrade Jacob (1961) was adapted as the film Winstanley (1975). Caute's book The Great Fear, a history of the Red Scare in 1940s and 1950s America, was praised by Tribune magazine. He has been a JP and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.