BULLOCK, Alan (Louis Charles) 1914-2004

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born December 13, 1914, in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, England; died February 2, 2004, in Oxford, England. Historian, educator, and author. Bullock, a founding Master of St. Catherine's College, Oxford, was a leading scholar of modern history often remembered for his books on twentieth-century dictators. He attended Wadham College, Oxford, where he completed his M.A. in modern history with first-class honors in 1938. Unable to serve in the war because of asthma, Bullock spent World War II as a diplomatic correspondent for the British Broadcasting Corp. He then joined the faculty at Oxford as fellow, dean, and tutor in modern history at New College. From 1952 to 1962 he was censor for the St. Catherine's Society, which led to his position as master of the college from 1961 to 1980. For four years, from 1969 to 1973, he also served as vice chancellor. Before publishing his own history books, Bullock notably worked with Winston Churchill on the former British prime minister's A History of the English-speaking Peoples. Bullock himself gained great acclaim for his first authored history, Hitler, A Study in Tyranny (1952; revised edition, 1962), which drew heavily on the transcripts from the Nuremberg trials; much later, in 1991, he wrote another important book on dictatorships titled Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives. Knighted in 1972, Bullock was made a life peer in 1976, becoming Baron Bullock of Leafield. He spent his later years in various advisory occupations, including as director of the Observer in the late 1970s and as a member of the board of trustees at the Tate Gallery. Among his other published works are the ambitious three-volume biography The Life and Times of Ernest Bevin (1960-83), Twentieth-Century Genius: 250 Biographies of the People Who Shaped the Greatest Period in Human History (1981), and Building Jerusalem: A Portrait of My Father (2000).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Independent (London, England), February 3, 2004, p. 16.

Los Angeles Times, February 4, 2004, p. B11.

New York Times, February 5, 2004, p. A29.

Times (London, England), February 3, 2004, p. 29.

Washington Post, February 4, 2004, p. B6.