Alan Bullock’s Followers (45)

Alan Bullock

Born

in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, England

December 13, 1914

Died

February 02, 2004

Genre

History, Nonfiction, Biography

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Dr. Bullock, later Sir Alan and eventually a life peer, diagnosed the malignancies of dictatorship and tyranny that plagued 20th-century Europe. He twinned two such dictators in one of his later studies, ''Hitler and Stalin, Parallel Lives'' (1991, Knopf).

He was the last of three brilliant Oxford historians whose views influenced thought in the English-speaking world and beyond, even when their own views diverged. The others were A. J. P. Taylor and Hugh Trevor-Roper who, for instance, offered a more nuanced interpretation of Hitler than did Dr. Bullock.

While Dr. Bullock originally portrayed Hitler as a diabolical charlatan and cynical opportunist without convictions, Trevor-Roper saw him as an ideologue and demagogue convinced of his own p Dr. Bullock, later Sir Alan and eventually a life peer, diagnosed the malignancies of dictatorship and tyranny that plagued 20th-century Europe. He twinned two such dictators in one of his later studies, ''Hitler and Stalin, Parallel Lives'' (1991, Knopf).

He was the last of three brilliant Oxford historians whose views influenced thought in the English-speaking world and beyond, even when their own views diverged. The others were A. J. P. Taylor and Hugh Trevor-Roper who, for instance, offered a more nuanced interpretation of Hitler than did Dr. Bullock.

While Dr. Bullock originally portrayed Hitler as a diabolical charlatan and cynical opportunist without convictions, Trevor-Roper saw him as an ideologue and demagogue convinced of his own political philosophy. It was a distinction crucial to the understanding of Hitler's initial successes as a politician, statesman and military strategist, and Dr. Bullock reflected it in his double study of Hitler and Stalin.

Nonetheless, his seminal Hitler book of 1952, published a mere seven years after Hitler's end, remained a scholarly classic and stayed in print, in one form or another, for more than half a century.

Dr. Bullock also compiled a three-volume biography of a Labor leader and former foreign secretary who helped shape postwar Britain, ''The Life and Times of Ernest Bevin.'' It took from 1960 to 1983 to complete.

He wrote or edited several other notable books on 20th-century European history, which also appeared in other languages.

Alan Louis Charles Bullock was born in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, the son of a gardener turned Unitarian preacher. He went to Oxford on a scholarship to study literature and modern history, which became his career, though he earned a doctor of literature degree in 1969.

Severe asthma ruled out military service in World War II; instead he spent it working for the European Service of the BBC as a political and diplomatic correspondent. After the war, he returned to Oxford.

Concentrating on the Third Reich of Hitler, he pored over the minutes of the Nuremberg trials. At the suggestion of the scholar A. L. Rowse, at Oxford, and the publisher Odhams, he produced the first comprehensive life of Hitler.

He also became increasingly active in academic affairs as dean and tutor of New College at Oxford. In 1960 he helped establish St. Catherine's, the university's first new college for graduate and undergraduate students in the 20th century.

He was vice chancellor of Oxford from 1969 to 1973. Over the years his outside interests included the chairmanship of the Tate Gallery (1973-1980). He was a former director of The Observer, joined the Social Democratic Party in 1981 and continued to lecture until 1997.

Dr. Bullock was knighted in 1972. Four years later, the Labor government of Harold Wilson made him a life peer; he took the title Baron Bullock of Leafield in the County of Oxfordshire. ...more

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Alan Bullock’s books

Average rating: 4.15 · 4,765 ratings · 241 reviews · 86 distinct works • Similar authors

	Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives 4.18 avg rating — 2,745 ratings — published 1952 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Hitler: A Study in Tyranny 4.13 avg rating — 1,660 ratings — published 1952 — 102 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Fontana dictionary of modern thought 4.07 avg rating — 90 ratings — published 1977 — 24 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Ernest Bevin: Foreign Secretary, 1945-1951 4.80 avg rating — 10 ratings — published 1983 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Twentieth Century Culture: A Biographical Companion by Alan Bullock (Editor), R. B. Woodings (Editor) 4.11 avg rating — 9 ratings — published 1983 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Portrait of the Monster as a Young Man: The Formative Years of Adolf Hitler 4.63 avg rating — 8 ratings — published 2012	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Humanist Tradition in the West 3.75 avg rating — 8 ratings — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Life and Times of Ernest Bevin, Volume One: Trade Union Leader, 1881-1940 4.80 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 1960 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	El Siglo XX (Historia de las civilizaciones, #11) 4.20 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 1971 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Liberal Tradition from Fox to Keynes by Alan Bullock (editor), Maurice Shock (editor) 4.50 avg rating — 4 ratings — published 1957 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Alan Bullock…

Series by Alan Bullock

Hitler: tyrannen og tyranniet (2 books)
by

Alan Bullock,

Ture Nerman (Translator),

Christina Strandberg (Translator)

4.18 avg rating — 2,747 ratings

The Life and Times of Ernest Bevin (3 books)
by

Alan Bullock

4.83 avg rating — 18 ratings

Quotes by Alan Bullock (?)

“The corruption at the heart of Communist ideology lay in the means. Social justice, greater freedom and equality, an end to exploitation and alienation are noble, humane ends. What compromised them fatally was the inhuman methods employed to achieve them. This was as true of Lenin and Trotsky as of Stalin.”
― Alan Bullock, Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives

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“Para una dictadura moderna, toda organización que sea independiente ya es política.”
― Alan Bullock, El Siglo XX

tags: chavez, comunismo, demagogia, fascismo, maduro, nueva-izquierda, politica, tiranía

1 likes

“La ideología, en su acepción general de conjunto coherente de creencias, es algo de lo que la mayoría de los partidos políticos se jacta de poseer, o admite tener, aun cuando les moleste la palabra. Sin embargo, los regímenes creados por Stalin y Hitler fueron ideológicos en un sentido mucho más restringido: en el de un cuerpo de creencias cuya aceptación era obligatoria para cada ciudadano, siendo cualquier desviación de las mismas susceptible de ser considerada como crimen capital.”
― Alan Bullock, Hitler y Stalin: Vidas paralelas (Kailas No Ficción nº 18)

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Alan Bullock’s Followers (45)

Alan Bullock

Combine EditionsAlan Bullock’s books

Series by Alan Bullock

Topics Mentioning This Author

Combine Editions
Alan Bullock’s books