John Holland Rose (28 June 1855 in Bedford – 3 March 1942) was an influential English historian who wrote a famous biography of French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, and also wrote a history of Europe, entitled The Development of the European Nations among other historical works. He was Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History at the University of Cambridge between 1919 and his retirement in 1934.
Rose was born in Bedford in 1855. He was educated at Bedford Modern School where he was an exhibitioner, at Owen’s College, Manchester and at Christ's College, Cambridge.
In 1911-1919 Rose was a reader in modern history at the University of Cambridge. He was the first Vere Harmsworth Professor of Naval History at the University of Cambridge between 1919 and his retirement in 1933. He was an honorary member of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Rose was the basis for C. P. Snow's fictional character M. H. L. Gay (see "Years of Hope: Cambridge, Colonial Administrator in the South Seas, and Cricket" by Philip Snow).
In 1880 Rose married Laura K. Haddon; they had one son and two daughters.
He died on 3 March 1942.
A Century of Continental History, 1780-1880 (London: E. Stanford, 1891; 2nd ed. 1906) read online
The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era, 1789-1815 (Cambridge University Press, 1894, 1904, 1919, 1925) read online
The Rise of Democracy (London: Blackie and Son, 1897, 1904, 1912) read online
The Rise and Growth of Democracy in Great Britain (Chicago: Stone, 1898) read online
The Life of Napoleon I (2 vols.) (1902; 11th ed. 1935) read online
The French Revolution: A History, by Thomas Carlyle (ed.) (London: G. Bell, 1902) read online
Napoleonic Studies (London: G. Bell, 1904, 1914) read online
Select Despatches from the British Foreign Office Archives, Relating to the Formation of the Third Coalition Against France, 1804-1805 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1904) read online
The Development of the European Nations (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1905; 5th ed. 1915) read online
Dumouriez and the Defence of England Against Napoleon (with Alexander Meyrick Broadley) (London: J. Lane, 1908) read online
A History of Malta During the Period of the French and British Occupations, 1798-1815 (by William Hardman) (ed. John Holland Rose) (London: Longman, Green and Company, 1909) read online
William Pitt and National Revival (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1911) read online
William Pitt and the Great War (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1911) read online
The Personality of Napoleon: The Lowell Lectures for 1912 (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1912, 1930) read online
Pitt and Napoleon: Essays and Letters (London: C. Belland Sons, Ltd., 1912) read online
How the War Came About. London: The Patriotic Publishing Co., 1914
The Origins of War: Lectures Delivered in the Michaelmas Term, 1914 (Cambridge University Press, 1914) read online
The Origins of the War, 1871-1914 (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1915) read online
Germany in the Nineteenth Century: Five Lectures by J. H. Rose, C. H. Herford, E. C. K. Gonner, and M. E. Sadler, with an introductory note by Viscount Haldane, ed. C.H. Herford (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1915) read online
Nationality as a Factor in Modern History (London: Rivingtons, 1916) read online
Nationality in Modern History (New York: Macmillan and Company, 1916) read online
Why We Carry On (London: T.F. Unwin, 1918) read online
Naval History and National History: The Inaugural Lecture Delivered to the University of Cambridge on Trafalgar Day, 1919 (Cambridge University Press, 1919) read online
Lord Hood and the Defence of Toulon (University of Cambridge Press, 1922) read online
The Indecisiveness of Modern War, and Other Essays (Kennikat Press, 1927) read online
Contributor to The Thinkers of the Revolutionary Era (1930)
The Mediterranean in the Ancient World (Cambridge University Press, 1933) read online
Man and the Sea: Stages in Maritime and Human Progress (W. Hoffer and Sons, 1935) read online
Co-editor of and contributor to The Cambridge History of the British Empire
Chapters in The Cambridge Modern History (vols. viii and ix), and The Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy;; (vol. i)
Articles in English Historical Review, Edinburgh, Nineteenth Century and After, Contemporary Review, Cambridge Historical Journal, et al.
