Dr. Peter Frederick Clarke was Professor of Modern British History from 1991 to 2004 at Cambridge University and Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, from 2000 to 2004. He is the author of a number of important books on British history and politics in the twentieth century, including Hope and Glory: Britain 1900-2000 (2004) (the acclaimed Penguin history of Britain in the twentieth century) and A Question of Leadership: Gladstone to Blair (1999). His most recent work is The Last Thousand Days of the British Empire: The Demise of a Superpower, 1944-47. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and reviews books regularly for The Times Literary Supplement, the London Review of Books and the Sunday Times.