A. J. P. Taylor

A. J. P. Taylor (1906-1990) (full name Alan John Percivale Taylor) was one of the great British historians of the 20th century. Born in Southport, Merseyside, brought up in Lancashire, and educated at Bootham School in York, he graduated from Oriel College, Oxford and went on to lecture in history at Manchester University before becoming a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford in 1938, a post he held until 1976. His speciality was European history, especially the Habsburg dynasty and Bismarck. He was one of the first television historians. In 1954, he published his masterpiece, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848-1918, and he followed it up with The Trouble Makers (1957), a critical study of British foreign policy, and the controversial The Origins of the Second World War, which earned him a reputation as a revisionist.

He also wrote significant introductions to British editions of Ten Days that Shook the World, by John Reed and The Communist Manifesto.

Taylor lived in Disley, Cheshire for a while, where Dylan Thomas was his guest; he later provided Thomas with a cottage in Oxford so he could recover from a breakdown.