A. J. P. Taylor (1906-1990) was the most famous and controversial historian of the twentieth century. Author of over thirty books, the three peaks of his scholarship are the massive and authoritative The Struggle for Mastery in Europe: 1848-1918, the idiosyncratic English History: 1914-1945 and the revisionist Origins of the Second World War.

But there was much else. The Trouble Makers: Dissent Over Foreign Policy (1792-1939) was his own personal favourite. The essay often saw A. J. P. Taylor at his best, it was a medium well-suited to his pithy, provocative, epigrammatic style. After his death the best of his essays were selected and reassembled by Chris Wrigley into three volumes: From Napoleon to the Second International, From the Boer War to the Cold War and British Prime Ministers.