Best, Geoffrey, 1928-2018

Restless and energetic, Geoffrey Best moved from one subject area to another, establishing himself as a leading historian in each before moving decisively to the next. He began with the history of the Anglican Church from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, then moved by turns to the economy and society of Victorian Britain, the history of peace movements and the laws of war, European military history and the life of Winston Churchill. He was similarly peripatetic in terms of institutional affiliation, as he moved from Cambridge to Edinburgh, then Sussex, and finally Oxford. Although his work was widely and highly praised, he remained self-critical and could never quite believe in his own success.

Posted to Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the British Academy, XIX