James Joll was born on June 21, 1918 and, was educated at Winchester, the University of Bordeaux and New College, Oxford. He left to join the British Army in 1940, eventually serving in the Special Operations Executive. He returned to Oxford after the War, completed his studies, and became an instructor there. He was a Fellow and Tutor in Politics from 1947 until 1950. He then transferred to St Antony's College, where he remained a Fellow until 1967.

While at Oxford, he wrote a book on the Second International (1955) and a book on Léon Blum, Walter Rathenau, and Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, called Intellectuals in Politics (1960). In 1964 he published The Anarchists, which showed his intertwined interests in the culture, events, political philosophy, and individual personalities forming the history of a Leftist movement.

In 1967 Joll left Oxford to teach at the London School of Economics, as a Professor of International History. His next major work was Europe Since 1870: an International History, which appeared in 1973. He returned to biography in 1977, with his book on Italian Marxist intellectual Antonio Gramsci; he was made a Fellow of the British Academy in the same year.

Following his retirement in 1981, he became Emeritus Professor of the University of London.

James Joll died July 12, 1994.