Men and Events: Historical Essays

by Hugh Trevor-Roper

Quite unexpectedly, I found reading this collection of essays -- political, social and, first and last, biographical -- sheer delight. The interplay of men and events is always operating across a sweeping stage of the Holy Land, the Orient, Europe, from Sweden to Spain, England of the dark ages, the Elizabethan period, the rebellion, revolution, etc.

Genres: History

324 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1957

About the author

Hugh Redwald Trevor-Roper, Baron Dacre of Glanton, was an English historian. He was Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford.
Trevor-Roper was a polemicist and essayist on a range of historical topics, but particularly England in the 16th and 17th centuries and Nazi Germany. In the view of John Philipps Kenyon, "some of [Trevor-Roper's] short essays have affected the way we think about the past more than other men's books". This is echoed by Richard Davenport-Hines and Adam Sisman in the introduction to One Hundred Letters from Hugh Trevor-Roper (2014): "The bulk of his publications is formidable ... Some of his essays are of Victorian length. All of them reduce large subjects to their essence. Many of them ... have lastingly transformed their fields." On the other hand, his biographer Adam Sisman also writes that "the mark of a great historian is that he writes great books, on the subject which he has made his own. By this exacting standard Hugh failed."
Trevor-Roper's most commercially successful book was titled The Last Days of Hitler (1947). It emerged from his assignment as a British intelligence officer in 1945 to discover what happened in the last days of Hitler's bunker. From interviews with a range of witnesses and study of surviving documents, he demonstrated that Hitler was dead and had not escaped from Berlin. He also showed that Hitler's dictatorship was not an efficient unified machine but a hodge-podge of overlapping rivalries.
Trevor-Roper's reputation was "severely damaged" in 1983 when he authenticated the Hitler Diaries shortly before they were shown to be forgeries.

Reviews

[Rogers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Trevor-Roper delves into different subjects of of history. Most of the essays deal with England and Europe pre and post Reformation. Some knowledge of the time period helps with understanding what Trevor-Roper is writing about. While agree with his POV in a majority of the essays, and disagree on a few others, all of the essays have caused me to think as to 'why' I disagree or agree with the essay.

[John E · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is real historical thinking. The dean of English historians in the mid-twentieth cenury is never better than in these 47 short essays. Most of them are expended thoughts on a recently published book and they are wonderful. Read it if you can find it.

[Christopher (Donut) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not read this cover-to-cover, just some of the essays on England in the 17th C.

(and the essays on Macaulay, Strachey, and Burckhardt)

He pulls off a Strachean sneer now and then, somehow less charmingly than Strachey himself.

Would love to provide examples, but I only had the book a short while.

[Adam]

Short, entertaining essays, primarily focused on individual characters rather larger events.