My friend Martin Clark, who has died aged 78, was a specialist in modern Italian history and politics, an interest first stimulated by his Cambridge supervisor Denis Mack Smith. Martin’s doctoral research under Eric Hobsbawm provided the basis for his first book, Antonio Gramsci and the Revolution that Failed (1977).
Son of Alfred, a civil servant, and Muriel, a housewife, Martin was born in Worthing, West Sussex. During the second world war he was evacuated to Llandudno, where he attended Ysgol John Bright. After national service he gained a first in history at Peterhouse, Cambridge, followed by a PhD at Birkbeck, University of London. Martin was appointed an assistant lecturer in the recently formed politics department at Edinburgh University in 1965. He and Ruth Williams married that year and they lived in Edinburgh for the rest of Martin’s life.
His authoritative Longman history Modern Italy appeared in 1984, with a third edition in 1996. It earned him a readership. The Italian Risorgimento followed in 1998. Martin’s scholarship and broad cultural interests were lightly worn. His books, sparkling with insight and wit, are extremely accessible to the non-specialist.
He held fast to scholarly values while the university world changed around him. This did not always make for easy relationships with colleagues, but regard for his academic work transcended the policy differences. Martin was glad to take early retirement in 2001. His writing continued with Mussolini in 2005. There was talk of a fourth edition of the Longman history, a projected political history of Sardinia and, most tantalising of all, an idea for a book that would explore the political context of Velázquez’s great portrait of Pope Innocent X. This would have required digging through Italian and Spanish archives, a task Martin would have relished, but both he and Ruth suffered spells of poor health and the trips never materialised.
Martin had a rare independence of mind and a sceptical attitude towards all political parties, though he was a member of the Scottish Green party in its early years. He and I went on Scottish hill walks with the Radical Ramblers and later ambled round Blackford Hill. He had a great passion for cricket and a love of all the arts, but above all of Verdi. He tried his hand at a play set in the last days of Mussolini. He was always entertaining company.
He is survived by Ruth, by their sons Adam and Ivan, and by his four grandchildren.
