Of his own titles this was A.J.P. Taylor's favourite. It is not hard to see why. The title alone provides a strong clue. He would always have an affinity with those engaged in such an activity. Derived from the Ford Lectures of 1956, A.J.P. Taylor in six vivid chapters examines Dissent over British Foreign Policy between 1792 and 1939. In his own words 'it is much the most exciting and interesting book I have written'.

One of A.J.P. Taylor's best known books,The Course of German History is a notoriously idiosyncratic work, written during the last days of the Second World War. Composed in his famously witty style, yet succinct to the point of sharpness,The Course of German History is one of the great historian's finest, if more controversial, accomplishments.
As Taylor himself noted, 'the history of the Germans is a history of extremes. It contains everything except moderation.' He could, of course, simply be referring to his own book.

A. J. P. Taylor could never be dull, least of all in the essay. The medium was perfect for his qualities. In expression he displayed elegant brevity: in argument paradox: in knowledge lightly-worn mastery. The result was an aphoristic concinnity only perhaps bettered among historians by Macaulay.

Faber are reissuing three volumes of essays expertly assembled and introduced by Chris Wrigley. This first one presents a dazzlingly varied conspectus of A. J. P. Taylor's shorter writings on the nineteenth-century.

'Compulsively quotable and often very funny . . . The range, volume and brio of his historical writing are astounding'. Roy Foster, "Independent on Sunday"

""

A. J. P. Taylor could never be dull, least of all in the essay. The medium was perfect for his qualities. In expression he displayed elegant brevity: in argument paradox: in knowledge lightly-worn mastery. The result was an aphoristic concinnity only perhaps bettered among historians by Macaulay. Faber are reissuing three volumes of essays expertly assembled and introduced by Chris Wrigley. This third volume is the most wide-ranging, including essays on British Prime Ministers from Sir Robert Walpole to Anthony Eden; How Wars Begin; How Wars End; The Congress of Vienna and, one of his more unlikely heroes, Lord Beaverbrook. 'He (Taylor) presented history in a vibrant, living, communicable form with many crucial messages for the present . . . this collection reminds is of his vast contribution.' Andrew Roberts, Daily Telegraph

In this account of the origins of World War II, Taylor provides a narrative of the years and events preceding Hitler's invasion of Poland on 1st of September 1939.

A. J. P. Taylor could never be dull, least of all in the essay. The medium was perfect for his qualities. In expression he displayed elegant brevity: in argument paradox: in knowledge lightly-worn mastery. The result was an aphoristic concinnity only perhaps bettered among historians by Macaulay.

Faber are reissuing three volumes of essays expertly assembled and introduced by Chris Wrigley. This second volume concentrates on the twentieth-century and, among other virtuoso displays, includes his controversial reappraisal of the beginnings of the First World War, 'War by Timetable' in which his relish of the paradox is seen at its most stimulating.

'Once you start reading, it is hard to stop . . . The style is always arresting, the conclusions often startling. Taylor's subjects rage from Trotsky to Churchill, from Bernard Shaw to Malcolm Muggeridge.' Adam Sisman in the "Observer"

During ten of the 31 years between 1914 and 1945 the English people were involved in world wars; for 19 of the years they lived in the shadow of mass unemployment. These themes and the politics which sprang from them shape the narrative of this book.

One of A.J.P. Taylor's best known books, The Course of German History is a notoriously idiosyncratic work, written during the last days of the Second World War. Composed in his famously witty style, yet succinct to the point of sharpness, The Course of German History is one of the great historian's finest, if more controversial, accomplishments. As Taylor himself noted, 'the history of the Germans is a history of extremes. It contains everything except moderation.' He could, of course, simply be referring to his own book.

This book chronicles three decades largely overshadowed by war and mass unemployment. It was a period that saw in England the formation of a national government, the only genuine incidence of three-party politics, the fruition of campaigns for trades union recognition, women's suffrage, and Irish independence, and abroad withdrawal from the Gold Standard and involvement in collective security. Written in Taylor's customary provocative style, this is historical writing at its best.

'The First World War cut deep into the consciousness of modern man'

For four years, while statesmen and generals blundered, the massed armies of Europe writhed in a festival of mud and blood. All the madness, massacres, and mutinies of the foulest war in history are brought home here by action pictures of the day and the text of an uncompromising historian.

The system of international repression ended with the fall of Metternich in 1848. The conflicting ideals of international revolution and collective security came into being with Lenin and Wilson in 1918. Nationalism, tempered by the Balance of Power, dominated Europe in the intervening seventy years.

Drawing on a wealth of diplomatic documents, A. J. P. Taylor examines the relations of the Great Powers, when Europe was still the centre of the world. Written in characteristically vigorous prose, this is a challenging and original diplomatic history, that also considers the political and economic forces which made continental war inevitable.

An impassioned firsthand account of the Russian Revolution
An American journalist and revolutionary writer, John Reed became a close friend of Lenin and was an eyewitness to the 1917 revolution in Russia. "Ten Days That Shook the World" is Reed's extraordinary record of that event. Writing in the first flush of revolutionary enthusiasm, he gives a gripping account of the events in Petrograd in November 1917, when Lenin and the Bolsheviks finally seized power. Containing verbatim reports both of speeches by leaders and of the chance comments of bystanders, and set against an idealized backdrop of soldiers, sailors, peasants, and the proletariat uniting to throw off oppression, Reed's account is the product of passionate involvement and remains an unsurpassed classic of reporting.

A history of the Habsburg monarchy from the end of the Holy Roman Empire to the monarchy's dissolution in 1918. The book offers an insight into the problems inherent in the attempt to give peace, stability and common loyalty to a hetergeneous population.

In the years between 1881 and 1912, the European powers extended their influence and empires over Africa and large parts of Asia. In 1884, there was suddenly added to the old colonial rivals, France and England, a power which had hitherto confined itself strictly to the European continent: Germany. The German colonial empire was virtually the work of a single year. The Cameroons were established in July 1884, German South-West Africa in August, New Guinea in December 1884, and German East Africa was begun in May 1885. In this book, the noted English historian A. J. P. Taylor examines the reasons for Germany s sudden entrance into the scramble for colonies."