Early life

Patrick Amory was born in New York City on July 10, 1965 to literary parents. His father, the late Hugh Amory, was noted as the most "rigorous" and "methodologically sophisticated" historian of the book in early America. He attended the Commonwealth School

Commonwealth School

Commonwealth School is an independent high school of about 155 students and 35 faculty members located at 151 Commonwealth Avenue in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States.-History:...

 in Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

, Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

.

Academia

Patrick Amory gained a bachelor's degree in history from Harvard University, and subsequently an M. Phil. and Ph. D. at the University of Cambridge in late antique and early medieval history and published 'People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489-554' (Cambridge University Press). Amory's book was considered an "illustration of the recent interest of historians in ethnogenesis" and described as "brilliant and remorseless" by Peter Brown

Peter Brown (historian)

Peter Robert Lamont Brown is Rollins Professor of History at Princeton University. His principal contributions to the discipline have been in the field of late antiquity and, in particular, the religious culture of the later Roman Empire and early medieval Europe.-Life:Peter Brown was born in...

. The book attempted to up-end the theory of the barbarian invasions and the fall of the Western Roman Empire

Western Roman Empire

The Western Roman Empire was the western half of the Roman Empire after its division by Diocletian in 285; the other half of the Roman Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire, commonly referred to today as the Byzantine Empire....

, via a case-study of individual reactions in the province of Italy, a core region of the Mediterranean culture-province, during a period of intense political change. The main ideas of the book have met with mixed response, with historians such as Peter Heather

Peter Heather

Peter Heather is a historian of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, currently Professor of Medieval History at King's College London. He has held appointments at University College London and Yale University and was Fellow and Tutor in Medieval History at Worcester College, Oxford until...

 objecting to some of its more radical theses.

Music industry

Amory had been active in independent rock since the 1980s, including stints as Rock Director and Program Director at WHRB-FM (Harvard's radio station). In 1994 he left academia to work as general manager of Matador Records

Matador Records

Matador Records is an independent record label, with a roster of indie rock artists and bands.-History:Matador was started by Chris Lombardi in 1989 in his New York City apartment. The following year, Lombardi was joined by former Homestead Records manager Gerard Cosloy, and the two of them have...

, one of the premier independent rock record labels of the 1990s. Amory together with Gerard Cosloy and Chris Lombardi at Matador Records are credited with pursuing the preservation of artistic freedom while preserving a viable business model through "realistic success". Amory has lived and worked in New York City since 1994.