A Personal History

by A.J.P. Taylor

The controversial historian offers a candid account of his education, conversion to socialism, personal life, career as historian, and friendships with such personalities as Rebecca West, Lord Beaverbrook, and Lewis Namier

Genres: Autobiography

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Alan John Percivale Taylor was an English historian of the 20th century and renowned academic who became well known to millions through his popular television lectures.

Reviews

[Oliver Bateman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a hidden gem. Taylor is a splendid, accessible stylist with a flair for understatement, and this book — full of gossipy judgments and candid confessions about his miserable personal life (his wife cheated on him with Dylan Thomas, even bought him a house) and curious childhood (he gives you two paragraphs on his father using his nails to remove worms from his rectum) — delivers bigly. Taylor also has some good remarks about how he saw his journalism, scholarly writing, and tv work as interconnected — which made him a true outlier among British academics of his era (hence his having such a large media lane to himself). Highly recommended.

[Muaz Jalil · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun book to read. Very disarming and approachable writing, especially coming from such a distinguished historian. I have already bought his controversial book on World War II and the Troublemakers. His tutor in Oxford was Phelps, the economist, the Provost of Oriel.

He also met A. L. Rowse and read his memoirs as well. Unlike Rowse, Taylor seems to have remained laborious, liberal, and an atheist throughout his life, to his credit. I feel temperamentally, you can see the difference between Rowse and Taylor. For instance, Taylor attributes the pivotal role his two years in Vienna played in his career, as well as the fortuitous accidents that led to meeting Pribram there, who later recommended him for Manchester, and others that solved many of his problems; Rowse would have never accepted that.

Finally, he hated Dylan Thomas - and his childhood story about stealing money from his destitute friend was really obnoxious. Very spongy, extractive, cruel type of character

[Charles Mosley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simply brilliant. Hilarious. Insightful. Suitably bitchy. Suitably self-adulatory. Touching in places too. I particularly like the way he puts the boot into Dylan Thomas. Not so much over DT's (appropriate initials) nastiness as a person, so much as his fraudulence as a poet. American worshippers at the DT shrine take note. Break your images of him and go back to worshipping consumer goods.

For Southerners (not Dixie-dwellers, but English people living in the southern counties) A J P Taylor's moneyed but radical background will come as a great surprise. Down south the new rich quickly gentrified themselves and went Tory, or at the very least Right Liberal. That happened much less often up North. Taylor's mother's flirtation with Bolshevism in the 1920s is one of the most interesting pasages in the book. A J P's 'inoculation', as he calls it, with Communism likewise.

[Amy Stanning · Rating 4 out of 5]

A rip roaring read most of the way. Taylor is blunt and opinionated with much humour. The section on ‘The Origins’ is sadly brief - perhaps his views were rather libellous? Interesting to hear how his writings originated although his judgements on his own work often lack modesty. Overall a helpful companion to any reader of Taylor’s work and when he is fashionable again, there will surely be many more.