Alan John Percivale Taylor FBA (25 March 1906 – 7 September 1990) was a British historian who specialised in 19th- and 20th-century European diplomacy. He was a journalist and a broadcaster. His television lectures made him famous. He was called "the Macaulay of our age".[1]
He was born in Southport. His parents were pacifists. He was sent to Bootham School in York, a Quaker school. Then he went to Oriel College, Oxford. He and his parents were in the Communist Party in the 1920's. He left it because of the 1926 General Strike. He graduated from Oxford in 1927 with first-class honours.
His first book, The Italian Problem in European Diplomacy, 1847–49 was published in 1934. He was a lecturer in history in the University of Manchester from 1930 to 1938. From 1938 to 1976 he was a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and a lecturer at the University of Oxford until 1964. He was stopped from lecturing because of the controversy around his book The Origins of the Second World War. He said the outbreak of war in 1939 was an unfortunate accident caused by mistakes on everyone's part and was not a part of Hitler's plan.
On 17 March 1942 Taylor made the first of seven appearances on The World at War – Your Questions Answered broadcast by BBC Forces' Radio. After the war Taylor became one of the first television historians. He had public arguments with the historian Hugh Trevor-Roper and with Malcolm Muggeridge. He was mentioned in an episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus.[2]
The Course of German History (1945) was a best-seller in both the United Kingdom and the United States. He said Nazi racial imperialism was the same as policies pursued by every German ruler.
His 1965 book English History 1914–1945 was very popular. He liked to make his books funny.