1983 was Professor Elton's 'grand climacteric'. For though the crucial age in astrology is 63 and he is only 61, there can be no doubt when a few short months saw the publication of a 'birthday book' by his American friends, his appointment to the Regius Chair of History at Cambridge, the appearance of the third volume of his own collected essays, and a short book in which Elton and Robert Fogel, doyen of American quantitative historians, debate 'which road to the past?' In these circumstances to go beyond a mere review to ask 'whither Elton' is a duty - and for some reviewers a pleasure. I approach the task differently: as a very grateful pupil, but mindful of the master's own dictum that historians 'neither are nor have authorities'.

LRB 19 January 1984 | PDF Download