George Macaulay Trevelyan (1876-1962) was one of the leading historians of his generation, whose books have been read by and influenced thousands of students and historians. He began his academic career in 1898 as a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, but left in 1903 to focus on his writing, and for twenty years produced a number of popular histories, including a three-volume biography of Garibaldi, English Social History and History of England. He returned to Cambridge in 1927, where he was Regius Professor of History until 1943. He was also the subject of a major biography by David Cannadine.