Worlds at War: The A.J.P. Taylor Collection
About this book
Brilliant and controversial, AJP Taylor is one of the most celebrated modern historians. This collection brings together some of his finest works. How Wars Begin - War has been one of the most destructive and decisive forces in world history. But how do wars begin? Taylor examines eight major conflicts, from the Napoleonic era to the late twentieth century, discussing the motives and personalities behind the decisions to go to war. How Wars End - What, besides martial glory and the loss of countless lives, brings a war to an end? In this brilliant polemical essay, Taylor shows how accidents, freak judgments, personal ambitions and, in Europe, the consistent problem of Poland, can prepare the ground for future conflict even as they provide a return to normality and peace. The War Lords - The Second World War, unlike the First, produced five great leaders. And whereas most modern wars have been run by committees and rival authorities, the Second World War was uniquely different. Once the British and French governments had declared war on Germany, virtually every decision of the epic conflict was made by one of these five men. Each was unmistakably a War Lord, determining the fate of mankind. But who were these men? And how much did they change the course of history? War By Timetable - a history of the mobilisation of the armies of the Great Powers in 1914. The timetables and limited resources that were meant to serve as a deterrent to war instead relentlessly drove the powers into a conflict that engulfed the world. War By Timetable is a must read for anyone interested in the origins of the First World War. Revolutions and Revolutionaries - From the fall of the Bastille to the storming of the Winter Palace in Moscow, Europe has been rocked by violent upheavals and dominated by insurrections. But why were some revolutions successful while others failed? Taylor examines Chartism, the British revolution that never was, before looking at the social and national revolutions of 1848 when European history, in Trevelyan's phrase, reached its turning point and failed to turn. In 1917 the Bolshevik seizure of power seemed to presage a new wave of revolutions but outside Russia the revolutionary impulse in Europe flagged and died. Praise for A. J. P. 'A dazzling exercise in revisionism which summed up Taylor's paradoxical, provocative and inventive approach to history' - The Times 'Taylor was a lifelong dissenter ... he shifted the ground of major debates' - Ben Pimlott, The Financial Times 'No historian of the past century has been more accessible' - Niall Ferguson, The Sunday Telegraph 'An almost faultless masterpiece' - The Observer 'Highly original and penetrating ... No one who has digested this enthralling work will ever be able to look at the period again in quite the same way' - The Sunday Telegraph A.J.P. Taylor (1906–90) was one of the most controversial historians of the twentieth century. He served as a lecturer at the Universities of Manchester, Oxford and London. Taylor was significant both for the controversy his work on Germany and the Second World War created and for his role in the development of history on television.