Christopher Hill

John Edward Christopher Hill (6 February 1912 – 24 February 2003), usually known simply as Christopher Hill, was an English Marxist historian and author of textbooks.

Hill was born into a prosperous middle class family of Methodists in York. His father was a solicitor. He attended St Peter's School, York. When he sat his entrance examination at Balliol College, Oxford, The two history tutors from Balliol College, recognised his ability and offered him a place to forestall any chance he might go to Cambridge.

Before he went to Oxford in 1931, Hill had a prolonged holiday in Freiburg, Germany, where he witnessed the rise of the Nazi Party; he later said it contributed significantly to the radicalisation of his politics.

He died of cerebral atrophy in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire.

Publications

• The English Revolution 1640. (1940)
• The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas during the English Revolution. (1972)

Writings about Hill

• Braddick, Michael: Christopher Hill. The Life of a Radical Historian. (2025)