Stephen Edward Koss (25 May 1940 – 25 October 1984) was an American historian specialising in subjects relating to Britain. Koss received his BA, MA, and PhD from

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

, where he was a student of R.K. Webb. He began his academic career at the

University of Delaware The University of Delaware (colloquially known as UD, UDel, or Delaware) is a Statutory college#Delaware, privately governed, state-assisted Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Newark, Delaware, United States. UD offers f ...

, and became an assistant professor at

Barnard College Barnard College is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college affiliated with Columbia University in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a grou ...

, New York City in 1966, and then a full professor in 1971. He was appointed a professor of history at

in 1978, where he had completed his bachelor's and master's degrees, as well as his doctorate; the doctoral thesis was turned into his first book ''John Morley at the India Office, 1905–1910'' published in 1969, the same year as his biography of R.B. Haldane. He was also a visiting fellow at

All Souls College, Oxford All Souls College (official name: The College of All Souls of the Faithful Departed, of Oxford) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Unique to All Souls, all of its members automatically become fellows (i.e., full me ...

. He served on the editorial board of ''

The Journal of Modern History ''The Journal of Modern History'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering European intellectual, political, and cultural history, published by the University of Chicago Press. Established in 1929, the journal covers events from appro ...

'' and held office with the North American Conference on British Studies. He died on 25 October 1984 as a result of complications following heart surgery. The historian F.M. Leventhal observed that as Koss matured there was "an increasingly irreverent and ironic tone in isscholarship, a willingness to criticize as well as to condone". His death was mourned in several academic books published soon after, together with that of Alan J. Lee, who had also written on the history of newspapers in Britain and who had also died at a relatively young age. Koss is best remembered for a two-volume work ''The Rise and Fall of the Political Press in Britain'' (1981, 1984), respectively covering the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Neal Ascherson Charles Neal Ascherson (born 5 October 1932) is a Scottish journalist and writer. In his youth he fought for the British in the Malayan Emergency. He has been described by Radio Prague as "one of Britain's leading experts on central and easte ...

, reviewing the second volume in 1985, wrote: "Koss was the archive-cruncher of his age. But he had another gift, which was to make the imparting of packed information stylish, readable, often mockingly witty."}. The quote is from the (freely available) opening of the article online. The two volumes of ''The Rise and Fall of the Political Press in Britain'' were later published by Fontana as a single volume. A tribute volume appeared in 1987: ''The Political Culture of Modern Britain: Studies in Memory of Stephen Koss'', edited by J. M. W. Bean, with a foreword by John Gross (London: Hamilton).

Publications

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References

1940 births 1984 deaths 20th-century American historians 20th-century American male writers Barnard College faculty Columbia College (New York) alumni Columbia University faculty American male non-fiction writers {{US-historian-stub