A. J. P. Taylor (March 25, 1906 - September 7, 1990) (full name Alan John Percivale Taylor) was a renowned British historian of the 20th century.

Born in Southport, Merseyside, brought up in Lancashire, and educated at Bootham School in York, Taylor graduated from Oriel College, Oxford and went on to lecture in history at Manchester University before becoming a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford in 1938, a post he held until 1976. His speciality was European history, especially the Habsburg dynasty and Bismarck. He was one of the first television historians. In 1954, he published his masterpiece, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848-1918, and he followed it up with The Trouble Makers (1957), a critical study of British foreign policy, and the controversial The Origins of the Second World War, which earned him a reputation as a revisionist.

He also wrote significant introductions to British editions of Ten Days that Shook the World, by John Reed, and The Communist Manifesto, writing from a virulently anti-communist position. It might be noted that Taylor was an advocate of a treaty with the Soviet Union, something that has been tied to his apparent support of Appeasement in his work on the road to the Second World War.

Taylor lived in Disley, Cheshire for a while, where Dylan Thomas was his guest; he later provided Thomas with a cottage in Oxford so he could recover from a breakdown.

Books

• The Habsburg Monarchy 1809-1918
• The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848-1918
• The Origins of the Second World War
• War by Timetable
• Beaverbrook
• Bismarck: The Man and Statesman
• The course of German history: A survey of the development of Germany since 1815
• Europe: Grandeur and Decline
• Germany's first bid for colonies 1884-1885 : a move in Bismark's European policy
• How wars end
• The Italian problem in European diplomacy, 1847-1849
• The trouble makers : dissent over foreign policy, 1792-1939
• English History 1914-1945 (Volume XV of the Oxford History of England)