Heat-Seeking 

Susan Pedersen

This is the third full biography of A.J.P. Taylor to appear since his death in 1990. I find this fact almost more interesting than anything in the biographies themselves. For more than two decades after the war Taylor was, very nearly, the public face of the historical profession in Britain, delivering his pugnacious, often revisionist, views on television and radio, in more than two dozen books and hundreds of newspaper columns, and in countless lectures to Oxford undergraduates and the history-minded public. One would expect this most controversial and heat-seeking of historians to attract a biographer, especially since he also had radical political views, a penchant for academic squabbling and a string of unconventional marriages. But three biographers?

Subscribers to the print edition can log in to view the entire article. For information about subscribing to the London Review of Books click here. This article is available for purchase online. Buy this article.