A. J. P. Taylor

1906 – 1990

Alan John Percivale Taylor was an English historian who specialized in 19th- and 20th-century European diplomacy and brought academic history to mass audiences through hundreds of unscripted television lectures from the 1950s through the 1980s. His provocative 1961 book The Origins of the Second World War argued that Hitler's foreign policy followed conventional German aims rather than a master plan and triggered decades of revisionist debate among historians. A 2011 History Today poll named him the fourth most important historian of the previous 60 years.

Last checked: May 10, 2026, 1:06 PM