Asa Briggs was one of Britain’s most prominent people in the second half of the twentieth century. He was a leading academic who first gained fame by graduating at age twenty in 1941 from both Cambridge and the London School of Economics with coveted first-class degrees from both institutions. No one had ever done the like in the entire history of British academia, and no one has duplicated the feat since. After a stint as a codebreaker in World War II, Briggs quickly established himself as a leading historian with such publications as The Age of Improvement, Victorian People, and Victorian Cities, and he achieved popular recognition through frequent appearances on the BBC.

Briggs designed the innovative interdisciplinary organization of the University of Sussex and was appointed its Vice-Chancellor. Under him it became both intellectually exciting and highly fashionable. He became the official historian of the BBC and the head of the Royal Commission on Nursing, as well as the head of many associations and organizations, such as the Brontë Society and the Workers’ Education Association.

In 1976 he was elevated to the peerage as Baron Briggs of Lewes, and he became Provost of Worcester College, Oxford. He continued to publish popular books of British history and to hold leadership positions in an increasingly wide variety of organizations, even after his retirement in 1991.

Distinguished biographer Adam Sisman has produced an eminently readable biography of a man in constant motion.