Anthony F. Upton (13 October 1929 – 4 July 2015) was a British professor of Nordic history.

Biography

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...

, he graduated B.A. in Modern History from Queen's College, Oxford, with First-Class honours in 1951, subsequently M.A. (Oxon). After leaving Oxford he travelled to the United States as a

Fulbright Scholar The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

and graduated A.M. in history from

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

, NC, in 1953. On his return from the United States, he was appointed as an Assistant Lecturer in History at the University of Leeds. He moved to the University of St. Andrews in 1956 as a lecturer in history, and was promoted to Reader before being appointed Professor of Nordic History in 1983, becoming Professor Emeritus on his retirement in 1996. He was a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Upton published three books about the first decades (1918–1941) of Finnish independence. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Helsinki on 2 June 2000. He is best known for disputing the so-called "

driftwood theory The driftwood theory (, ) states that Finnish involvement in the Second World War as an aggressor was the cause of inadvertent decisions made on the basis of a limited choice of policies. The first arguments that Finland drifted into the Continua ...

" ( fi, Ajopuuteoria) of Finnish passivity in Operation Barbarossa.

Markku Jokisipilä Markku is a given name. Notable people with the name include: *Markku Alén (born 1951), Finnish former rally and race car driver * Markku Aro (born 1950), Finnish singer who performed on Eurovision contest in 1971 *Markku Huhtamo (born 1946), Fin ...

Finnish History, Culture and the Second World War
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Works

* ''Finland in Crisis, 1940–1941'', 1964, 318 pp. * ''Finland, 1939–1940'', 1974, 174 pp. * ''The Finnish Revolution 1917–1918'', 1980, 608 pp. * ''A Short History of Finland'', 1998, 209 pp. * ''Charles XI and Swedish Absolutism'', 1998, 281 pp. * ''Europe 1600–1789'', 2001. 437 pp.

References

* (in Finnish

University of Helsinki * Works in Englis

Academics of the University of St Andrews 1929 births 2015 deaths People from Stockton Heath Fellows of the Royal Historical Society {{UK-historian-stub