A(lan) J(ohn) P(ercival) Taylor, fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, was born in 1906 in Southport, Lancashire, England. Educated at Oxford and Vienna University, he was from 1930 to 1938 a lecturer in history at Manchester University. While he was at Manchester, Taylor published The Italian Problem in European Diplomacy, 1847-49 and Germany's First Bid for Colonies, 1884-85. In 1938 he became a fellow of Magdalen College. He was Ford's Lecturer in English history at Oxford in 1956 and Leslie Stephen Lecturer at Cambridge in 1961, and was a fellow of the British Academy. The Habsburg Monarchy, 1809-1918 was published in 1948. He was also the author of The Course of German History; From Napoleon to Stalin; Rumours of War; The Struggle for Mastery in Europe, 1848-1918; Politics in Wartime and Other Essays; and Origins of the Second World War. He was a regular contributor to the New Statesman and the Manchester Guardian. Taylor passed away in 1990.
