HUGH TREVOR-ROPER: The Historian

Drawing on his rich private archive, these essays illuminate not only Trevor-Roper's own career, but the preoccupation and values of a generation shaped by the struggle against Hitler and then by the Cold War. More than any other historian of his generation, Hugh Trevor-Roper (1914-2003) remains a vitalising intellectual presence in Britain and beyond. Convinced of the historian's duty to inform the public mind, he traversed the boundaries of professional specialisation in search of broad conclusions that would bring an historical dimension to contemporary thought and debate. He addresses a wide range of subject matter as well as exploring recurrent features of his work: his belief in controversy, his espousal of unconventional opinions, his literary sensibility, and his exhilarating prose. There is particular attention on British and European history from the Renaissance, through the wars of religion to the Enlightenment and the Second World War. After this research and his own career in wartime intelligence, he produced his most famous book 'The Last Days of Hitler'. Chapters include The Puritan Revolution, Ecumenism and Erasmianism: The Wiles Lectures 1975, The Politics of Scottish Enlightenment, The Special Service in Germany and Himmler's Masseur Gina Thomas among them. 352pp in large softback.