Alan Milward

As historian

One of the most influential historians of the second half of the twentieth century, Milward's work was well known in Britain, across Europe and beyond. He derived this reputation not from the writing of popular histories or media appearances, but from his abilities as linguist, economic historian and archival researcher, as well as historical narrator and political scientist. He made an essential contribution to the understanding of modern European history and integration, i.e. the elements that went to shape contemporary Europe.

Although he is usually seen as an economic historian, he worked in many fields including economic theory and policy, economic and political history, and contemporary economic and political studies. He was a very rigorous modern political economist.

Career

Milward was born and raised in Stoke-on-Trent, where his father was an employee of the Post Office. He attended a grammar school there.

He studied Medieval and Modern History at University College London from 1953 to 1956, gaining a First Class BA degree,and then achieved his PhD at the London School of Economics in 1960, with a thesis written under supervision of W. Norton Medlicott on the armaments industry in the German economy during the Second World War.

His first academic placement was the teaching of Indian Archaeology at the School of Oriental and African Studies. Then, in 1960, he was given the position of assistant lecturer and subsequently lecturer in Economic History at Edinburgh University. In 1965 he advanced to become lecturer and later senior lecturer at the School of Social Studies, University of East Anglia. He then moved to the United States in order to become an associate professor of Economics at Stanford University, returning after three years to become Professor of European Studies at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology between 1971 and 83. He was then a professor at the European University Institute in Florence for two terms, between 1983 and 86 and secondly between 1996 and 2002. From 1986 to 1996 he was Professor of Economic History at the London School of Economics. In 1993 he was given the position of official historian at the Cabinet Office, and produced the first volume of the Government Official History of the United Kingdom and the European Community, The Rise and Fall of a National Strategy 1945-1963, published in 2002.

He was elected a fellow of the British Academy in 1987 and fellow of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters in 1994.

Milward gained a reputation for his ability to articulate, and sustain, theses that differed considerably from the received wisdom; and to refute arguments against his position. His interpretations caused widespread debate and discussion, for example his minimalist contention that the Marshall Plan was not as crucial as often supposed in stimulating post-war European reconstruction or persuading former antagonists to work together. In his book The European Rescue of the Nation State (1992), he also challenged the Eurosceptic doctrine that the European Union involved integration of nation-states in a way that undermined sovereignty and led to a federalist superstate.

He had a gift for languages, becoming fluent in Norwegian, German, Italian and French.

As well as several monographs Milward wrote reviews of a vast number of books which bore some relation to his fields of expertise; collected in Alan S. Milward and Contemporary European History: Collected Academic Reviews, eds. F. Guirao and F. Lynch (Routledge, 2015).

His life's work was reviewed in depth in Alan S. Milward and a Century of European Change, eds. F. Guirao, F. Lynch, & S. M. R. Perez (Routledge, 2012).

Personal life

His second marriage was to Frances MB Lynch, a historian of the French and European economies.

He died after a long illness which began in October 2007.

Works