He was what I often think is a dangerous thing for a statesman to be - a student of history; and like most of those who study history, he learned from the mistakes of the past how to make new ones.

These friendships helped to enhance his understanding of the region. He usually favoured an anti-Great man theory history being made for the most part by towering figures of stupidity rather than of genius. Taylor's speech was highly contentious in part because in October 1938 the Munich Agreement was popular with the public even if subsequently it was to be reviled along with the policy of appeasement and also because he used a non-partisan and non-political occasion to make a highly partisan politically charged attack on government policy.

Both a journalist and a broadcaster he became well known to millions through his television lectures. Alan John Percivale Taylor FBA (25 March 1906 – 7 September 1990) was a British historian who specialised in 19th and 20th century European diplomacy.