Christopher Hill: The Life of a Radical Historian

A luminous biography of one of the last century’s most influential historians

Born in 1912, Christopher Hill was one of the foremost historians of his generation. Abandoning the respectable provincial Methodism of his youth, Hill embraced Marxism and pursued a celebrated intellectual career. His early enthusiasm as a member of the Communist Party eventually gave way to disillusionment with its doctrinaire practices. Hill embodied the conflicts and challenges of the postwar decades. Michael Braddick’s astute biography situates Hill’s life and work in the proper historical context, bringing him alive for twenty-first-century readers.