Why are you a historian of Latin America?
I opted for Latin America in the late 1960s when HMG, alarmed by the Cuban Revolution, funded research in this field. I followed the money.
What’s the most important lesson history has taught you?
Don’t believe all you read.
Which history book has had the greatest influence on you?
Eleanor and Herbert Farjeon’s Kings and Queens: nurtured my infant interest in history while planting the seed of republicanism.
What book in your field should everyone read?
John Womack’s Zapata and the Mexican Revolution.
Which moment would you most like to go back to?
Just before the Big Bang. I realise there are risks attached.
Which historian has had the greatest influence on you?
In 1968 Jack Gallagher breezily suggested I work on Latin America. The rest is history.
Which person in history would you most like to have met?
Herodotus.
How many languages do you have?
Fluent Spanish; French and Portuguese (reading); rusty Latin and (classical) Greek.
What is the most common misconception about your field?
That historians occasionally encounter a single stupendous fact which changes everything.
What’s the most exciting field in history today?
‘Exciting’ – applied to history – often means fashionable, flashy – and usually flawed.
What historical topic have you changed your mind on?
I finished a long book on the Mexican Revolution claiming that it was pretty much over when the fighting stopped.
Who is the most underrated person in history…
Some neolithic shaman who persuaded his people that they should obey the gods (as interpreted by him/her).
… and the most overrated?
Napoleon Bonaparte.
Is there an important historical text you have not read?
How long have you got?
What’s your favourite archive?
The National Archives, Kew.
What’s the best museum?
The Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City.
What technology has changed the world the most?
Electricity edges steam power; AI isn’t even close (yet).
Recommend us a historical novel…
Dickens’ Barnaby Rudge.
… and a historical drama?
Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.
You can solve one historical mystery. What is it?
What happened to the ‘Princes in the Tower’? (My grandchildren ask me and I don’t have an answer.)
Alan Knight is Emeritus Professor of the History of Latin America at the University of Oxford. His works include The Mexican Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 1986) and Bandits and Liberals, Rebels and Saints: Latin America Since Independence (University of Nebraska Press, 2022).
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