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Peter Clarke, author

About

Peter Clarke

Peter Clarke was born in a cotton town in Derbyshire but was brought up on the south coast of England. Educated at a state school, he was the first member of his family to go to university. He was later to become Professor of Modern British History at Cambridge University, also Master of Trinity Hall; and was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1989. Lancashire and the New Liberalism (1971), the first of his thirteen books, took him back to his own northern roots – in ways that he now explores with personal insight in this memoir.

 

Books

  • Great Expectations? A Historian's Memoir. By Peter Clarke

    Great Expectations? A Historian's Memoir.

    This book is both an intellectual memoir and a study in historical formation. It charts the making of ‎a professional historian, from family background and grammar-school education through ‎Cambridge, early academic uncertainty, and the demanding process of turning a doctoral thesis into ‎a first book that gained lasting recognition. Along the way, it sheds light on the informal networks, ‎patronage, friendships and rivalries that shaped British academic life in the post-war period. At its ‎core is the story of Lancashire and the New Liberalism: how it was conceived, criticised, revised ‎and ultimately established, and what that journey reveals about historical method, political ‎interpretation and scholarly ambition. Moving between personal recollection and professional ‎reflection, the book explores enduring themes of class, meritocracy, intellectual influence and ‎contingency. Candid, reflective and occasionally wry, it offers a rare insider’s account of how ‎historical scholarship is produced, contested and sustained over a lifetime.‎

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