Alan Bullock (Alan Louis Charles Bullock) Biography

British historian, born in Bradford, educated at Wadham College, Oxford. He began his academic career at Oxford as a fellow of New College in 1945. He was instrumental in the formation of St Catherine's College, of which he became Founding Master in 1960. From 1967 to 1973 he was Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University. Hitler: A Study in Tyranny (1952) gained him an international reputation and has remained highly valued as an account of Hitler's career. The first two volumes of his The Life and Times of Ernest Bevin appeared in 1960 and 1967 respectively; to complete the third, Ernest Bevin, Foreign Secretary (1983), Bullock was obliged to wait until restrictions on the availability of many critical documents were removed. The work is regarded as a major contribution to twentieth-century British and international political history. Notable among his other publications are The Humanist Tradition in the West (1985) and Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives (1991). He was created Baron Bullock in 1976.