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The BIOGRAPH DICT MOD THOUGHT
Fontana Biographical Companion to Modern Thought
Paperback
First published November 1, 1977
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236 people want to read
About the author
Alan Bullock
87 books45 followersDr. 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 21, 2015
I bought The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought in 1999 for the surprisingly hefty sum of 2.223 Belgian Francs (now roughly 55 euro or 65 dollars). Not sure why I felt I had to buy this book as I must confess that for the best part of these last fifteen years it has been sitting idly on a library shelf in the company of other dictionaries. However, lately I have started to perusing it more regularly. I find it gives me more pleasure and stimulus when, during a break from work, I open it on an arbitrary page, pick just one lemma that tickles my curiosity and read that very carefully. So today I was learning about musique concrète („A form of music, first developed by the Frenchman Pierre Schaeffer in 1948, involving sounds of all types (musical, natural, human, mechanical, etc.) which, recorded on tape, are filtered and manipulated so as to disguise their origin …”). It ends on a suggestion that I read on about bruitisme, electronic music, or futurism. And soon I may well do so. A book like this, that at the time of its publication made a claim to capture the pulse of its age, is of course also a kind of time capsule. Yes,hypertext and jihad are already there, but Ground Zero and tablet computer were still latent in the unfolding future. Also absent is Wikipedia. Come to think of it, there has not been a fourth edition of the Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought. My copy may still become a collector’s item …
April 26, 2024
Exquisite référence book
October 17, 2012
i picked this book up on a lunch break at a local bookstore about 10 years ago, never seen it since at any other location, but it's genuine and fantastic and fun to have around.
from a typical cursory read, it covers most theories and philosophical notions in a OED fashion, carefully compresses ideas into a simplistic chapter or three and allows you to understand a concept like objectivism, free markets or keynesian theory, or embourgeoisement, gravitons, insulin, maoism and many worlds theory, to name one of hundreds of topics in 930+ pages.
as a dictionary, it's kind of useless. as a way to explain a topic or get an accurate refresher on a topic, it's fantastic as a crib book on science or philosophy, which can often delve into topics that require concentrated time spent with objective perspectives, like kant, wittgenstein, etc. unfortunately, it doesn't cover those topics well, but it covers science, economics and Modern ideas at a high school level.
nowadays, wikipedia can relay the same information about similar topics, in a faster, broader and more referenced fashion, which can be useful when you need to cover more immediate questions or research topics, but having the book around for those times when you're speculative or stuck, is enjoyable.
In some ways, it's like a michael crichton book without a plotline or characters, just lots of science and philosophy tied together with large paragraphs, a non-descript cover and a thick binding.
the DoMT covers a broad breadth and depth of ideas and famous thinkers, movements, and ideas from the 20th century quite well, and while it's already dated in some topics, it covers things in quite an almanac fashion. every page is brilliant though, that you can open it up anywhere and read two or three entries and keep reading for pages and pages, looking for what's next, a portable encyclopaedia just for modern ideas.
if the pair (Bullock and Trombley) write a new edition for 21st century topics, or cover more philosophy topics or areas of medicine, science, economics or history, i think it would be quite popular with students of all ages.
from a typical cursory read, it covers most theories and philosophical notions in a OED fashion, carefully compresses ideas into a simplistic chapter or three and allows you to understand a concept like objectivism, free markets or keynesian theory, or embourgeoisement, gravitons, insulin, maoism and many worlds theory, to name one of hundreds of topics in 930+ pages.
as a dictionary, it's kind of useless. as a way to explain a topic or get an accurate refresher on a topic, it's fantastic as a crib book on science or philosophy, which can often delve into topics that require concentrated time spent with objective perspectives, like kant, wittgenstein, etc. unfortunately, it doesn't cover those topics well, but it covers science, economics and Modern ideas at a high school level.
nowadays, wikipedia can relay the same information about similar topics, in a faster, broader and more referenced fashion, which can be useful when you need to cover more immediate questions or research topics, but having the book around for those times when you're speculative or stuck, is enjoyable.
In some ways, it's like a michael crichton book without a plotline or characters, just lots of science and philosophy tied together with large paragraphs, a non-descript cover and a thick binding.
the DoMT covers a broad breadth and depth of ideas and famous thinkers, movements, and ideas from the 20th century quite well, and while it's already dated in some topics, it covers things in quite an almanac fashion. every page is brilliant though, that you can open it up anywhere and read two or three entries and keep reading for pages and pages, looking for what's next, a portable encyclopaedia just for modern ideas.
if the pair (Bullock and Trombley) write a new edition for 21st century topics, or cover more philosophy topics or areas of medicine, science, economics or history, i think it would be quite popular with students of all ages.
Want to read
September 10, 2010*note to self. Copy from A.
July 10, 2011
An indispensable resource.
August 5, 2012
A bible!
August 24, 2012
I am always reading this. It is a fantastic writer's reference for subject matter, and just a bizarre and fantastic guide to everything one could possibly talk about while getting a BA.
January 19, 2020
Brilliant reference book for those not ready to solely rely on Google.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews