Faber & Faber

During his lifetime, A. J. P. Taylor was the most famous historian in Great Britain, and, indeed, had some claim to being the most famous in the world. A performer on radio since the Second World War, he became in 1957 the first person ever to give a lecture on television, and this was the beginning of a career in this relatively new medium that would last for a quarter of a century. 

He wrote widely for newspapers and periodicals: reviews and pieces on history for the Manchester Guardian, the Observer and the New Statesman, and opinion pieces, some of which were crass and ridiculous, for the tabloids. He was often a participant in Sunday magazine features. He gave dozens of lectures to local meetings of the Historical Association. In short, as he was proud to say, he was recognised by cab drivers.

But he was, first of all, an Oxford historian, a Fellow of Magdalen College for nearly forty years. He wrote several outstanding books of history, all of which are still in print: The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848-1918 (1954), The Origins of the Second World War (1962), and English History 1914-1945 (1965).

The book of history which Faber are now making available, The Trouble Makers: Dissent over Foreign Policy 1792-1939 (1957), was of a different type, being based on a prestigious series of Oxford lectures (the Ford Lectures), and its lively style reflects this. But the book is also something more: it was the book closest to Taylor’s heart. He always saw himself as a radical at odds with the Establishment - a word and concept which he himself coined and first used - and this book is about his heroes, men who formed an Opposition to British foreign policy, calling for peace rather than war, and inspiring many others in their own times. He brings alive a British tradition which is unknown to many.

He was also adept at shorter essays, many of which focused on Great (and not-so-Great) Men. They provide very satisfying short reads, allowing one to put the book down with the conviction that something lively and thought-provoking has been learned in a half-hour. Some of his most interesting essays can be found in Faber’s editions of Europe From Napoleon to the Second International, which concentrates on the nineteenth century, From the Boer War to the Cold War, concentrating on twentieth-century Europe, and British Prime Ministers and Other Essays.

I myself knew Taylor for the final quarter-century of his life. He supervised my D.Phil at Oxford; I was, he told me, his last research student. He had a sink-or-swim approach to supervising, in that I was left to demonstrate that I was able to work on my own at an acceptable level - the tender loving care which most supervisors today lavish on their own research students was not then seen as appropriate by many academics. A successful doctoral thesis was, after all, the entry card to the academic profession, and the research student had to prove that he or she was capable. Once I had produced two chapters of which he approved, the relationship re-adjusted itself and I moved closer to being a colleague rather than just a student.

Taylor was sharp and combative towards those with whom he disagreed and who could take care of themselves. To those such as students, whom he could have easily crushed, he was more warm and supportive - in earlier days, he would have been kind to the servants. He adored his children, an affection which transcended his sometimes turbulent private life. He could be lively and bright, stimulating and amusing, warm and generous, patient and tolerant, and devoted to his friends, his children, and sometimes his wives. On the other hand, he was basically indifferent to most people. He could be conceited and self-righteous, self-absorbed and self-contained, insensitive and thoughtless. He was a complicated man. None of this, however, should discourage anyone from reading his books - after all, it is not necessary to like a composer as a person in order to enjoy the music. And those who do read his books will open themselves to enjoyment and knowledge - and is there a bettter intellectual combination?

Kathleen Burk
Author of Troublemaker: The Life and History of A. J. P. Taylor