MAURICE COWLING was born in London in 1926. He was educated at Battersea Grammar School and Jesus College, Cambridge, where he read History. He did military service between 1944 and 1948 in the British and Indian armies. He as a Fellow of Jesus College from 1950 to 1953 and, after a period spent chiefly in London, returned to Jesus as a Fellow in 1961. Since 1963 he has been a Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, and from 1976-1993 University Reader in Modern English History.