Carr was born in London to a middle-class family, and was educated at the Merchant Taylors' School in London and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was awarded a First Class Degree in Classics in 1916. Carr's family had

In 1936, Carr became the Woodrow Wilson Professor of International Politics at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, and is particularly known for his contribution on

In 1946, Carr started living with Joyce Marion Stock Forde, who was to remain his common law wife until 1964. In 1947, Carr was forced to resign from his position at Aberystwyth. In the late

Carr is also famous today for his work of historiography, What Is History? (1961), a book based upon his series of G. M. Trevelyan lectures,

Like many of his generation, Carr found World War I to be a shattering experience as it destroyed the world he had known before 1914. He joined the British Foreign Office in 1916, resigning in 1936. Carr was excused from military service for medical reasons. He was at first

During World War II, Carr's political views took a sharp turn towards the left. He spent the Phoney War working as a clerk with the propaganda department of the Foreign Office. As Carr did not believe that Britain could defeat Germany, the declaration of war on

After the war, Carr was a fellow and tutor in politics at Balliol College, Oxford, from 1953 to 1955, when he became a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, where he remained until his death in