Charles Boxer as Biographer: A Preliminary Evaluation

Abstract

Charles Boxer was above all a highly accomplished biographer who wrote biographical monographs, essays, pamphlets, articles and scores of mini-biographical sketches. His success in this mode was closely associated with his remarkable ability to find and utilise obscure primary sources. Although he took little interest in the behavioural sciences, or in any of the theoretical schools of historical thought popular in his era, he was profoundly committed to understanding ‘the Other’. He wrote biographies in a detached, flexible and impartial manner, and used it with great skill to explore more general historical questions.