Born in
Reading, Berkshire, on 23 June 1930, Elliott was educated at
Eton College and
Trinity College, Cambridge. He was an assistant lecturer at
Cambridge University from 1957 to 1962 and Lecturer in History from 1962 until 1967, and was subsequently Professor of History at
King's College, London, between 1968 and 1973. In 1972 he was elected to the
Fellowship of the
British Academy. He was elected to the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1977 and the
American Philosophical Society in 1982. Elliott was Professor in the School of Historical Studies at the
Institute for Advanced Study in
Princeton, New Jersey, from 1973 to 1990, and was
Regius Professor of Modern History, Oxford, between 1990 and 1997. He held honorary doctorates from the Autonomous University of Madrid (1983), the universities of Genoa (1992), Portsmouth (1993), Barcelona (1994), Warwick (1995), Brown University (1996), Valencia (1998), Lleida (1999), Complutense University of Madrid (2003), College of William & Mary (2005), London (2007), Charles III University of Madrid (2008), Seville (2011),
Alcalá (2012), and Cambridge (2013). Elliott was knighted in the
1994 New Year Honours for services to history and was decorated with
Commander of Isabella the Catholic in 1987, the
Grand Cross of Alfonso the Wise in 1988, the Grand Cross of Isabella the Catholic in 1996, and the
Creu de Sant Jordi in 1999. An eminent
Hispanist, he was given the
Prince of Asturias Prize in 1996 for his contributions to the
social sciences. For his outstanding contributions to the history of Spain and the
Spanish Empire in the early modern period, Elliott was awarded the
Balzan Prize for History, 1500–1800, in 1999. His studies of the
Iberian Peninsula and the Spanish Empire helped the understanding of the problems confronting 16th- and 17th-century Spain, and the attempts of its leaders to avert its decline. He is considered, together with
Raymond Carr and
Angus Mackay, a major figure in developing Spanish historiography. Elliott's principal publications are
The Revolt of the Catalans (1963);
The Old World and the New, 1492–1650 (1970); and
The Count-Duke of Olivares (1986). and, in 1992, the
Prize XVIIe. In 2006, his book
Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America, 1492–1830 was published by Yale University Press, winning the
Francis Parkman Prize the following year. In 2012, he published his reflections on the progress of historical scholarship in
History in the Making. == Works ==