Taylor, A.J.P.

▪ British historian and journalist

in full  Alan John Percivale Taylor  

born March 25, 1906, Birkdale, Lancashire, Eng.

died Sept. 7, 1990, London

      British historian and journalist noted for his lectures on history and for his prose style.

      Taylor attended Oriel College, Oxford, graduating with first-class honours in 1927. In 1931 he began writing reviews and essays for the Manchester Guardian (later The Guardian). He continued his studies in history, and in 1934 his first book, The Italian Problem in European Diplomacy 1847–1849, was published. A second book on diplomacy, Germany's First Bid for Colonies 1884–1885: A Move in Bismarck's European Policy, appeared in 1938. Taylor was a tutor in modern history at Magdalen College, Oxford, from 1938 to 1963 and a research fellow there until 1976. He became a panel member of a BBC-TV news analysis program in 1950 and made regular television appearances thereafter. He was also popular as a journalist and lecturer.

      Though often sparking controversy with his unorthodox views, Taylor nonetheless maintained high standards of scholarship. Among his more than 30 publications are The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848–1918 (1954; published as volume 1 of The Oxford History of Modern Europe) and English History 1914–1945 (1965). His most widely read and controversial book was The Origins of the Second World War (1961), in which he maintained that the war erupted because Great Britain and France vacillated between policies of appeasement and resistance toward Adolf Hitler. Taylor's autobiography, A Personal History, was published in 1983.

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