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A. J. P. Taylor and History
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
Extract
A. J. P. Taylor's reputation among his fellow historians, like his writings, is marked by paradoxes and contradictions. There is respect for his learning, envy of his brilliance, admiration for his originality, and irritation, if not downright indignation, at his alleged vices. In private, his close friends assure you of his very great qualities as a historian, only to grumble at his absurdities as a showman. In public, his reviewers, even when they praise his scholarship, complain of the impossibility of seeing him as a whole
There is something Shavian about A. J. P. Taylor and his place among academic historians: he is brilliant, erudite, witty, dogmatic, heretical, irritating, insufferable, and withal inescapable. He sometimes insults and always instructs his fellow-historians.…
Almost ten years have passed since this comment was made, and Taylor is no less controversial now than before. Indeed, his two latest books, The Origins of the Second World War (1961) and the Illustrated History of the First World War (1963) have only increased his notoriety among his colleagues. As for this essay, the assumption behind it is that a historian as prolific and important as Taylor deserves a comprehensive and sober analysis, and that perhaps even his eccentricity and insufferableness can be instructive.
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- Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1964
References
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2 This biographical material is based on Ved Mehta, Fly and the Fly Bottle: Encounters with British Intellectuals (Boston, 1963)Google Scholar; “The Observer Profile: A. J. P. Taylor,” The Observer, April 30, 1961, p. 24 (attributed by Mehta to J. Douglas Pringle); Taylor's own publications; and personal information.
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4 Ibid., p. 7; Rumours of Wars (London, 1952), p. 12Google Scholar.
5 Taylor's archery is perhaps at its best (or worst) in the captions of his Illustrated History of the First World War (first American edition, New York, 1964)Google Scholar. For example, for a photograph of Woodrow Wilson taking a particularly dignified stance (p. 196): “President Wilson about to lay a fifteenth point.”
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19 Taylor's current project, the post-1914 volume in The Oxford History of England series, is his first major departure into English national history.
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31 Struggle for Mastery, p. 575.
32 For an example of inconsistency regarding British reliance on the Italian navy in the 1890's, cf. Struggle for Mastery, pp. 330, 344.
33 For the origins of the War of 1870, cf. Struggle for Mastery, pp. 201–202, and Course of German History, p. 112.
34 Struggle for Mastery, p. 528.
35 Ibid., p. xxxvi.
36 From a book review in the New Statesman, April 17, 1964, p. 609.
37 Origins, p. 219.
38 Ibid., p. 72.
39 Ibid., pp. 69, 82, 108.
40 Ibid., pp. vi, 55.
41 Ibid., pp. 216, 247.
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45 The same conclusions regarding the outcome of World War I can be found in the Illustrated History (see, for example, pp. 218–219).
46 Trevor-Roper, loc. cit., p. 96.
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48 Ibid., pp. 237–238.
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