The Proper Study Of Mankind

ISAIAH BERLIN was born in Riga, capital of Latvia, in 1909. When he was six, his family moved to Russia; there in 1917, in Petrograd, he witnessed both Revolutions -- Social Democratic, and Bolshevik. In 1921, his family came to England, and he was educated at St Paul's School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. At Oxford, he was a fellow of All Souls, a Fellow of New College, Professor of Social and Political Theory and founding President of Wolfson College. He also held the Presidency of the British Academy. His published work includes Karl Marx, Russian Thinkers, Concepts and Categories, Against the Current, Personal Impressions, The Crooked Timber of Humanity, The Sense of Reality, The Roots of Romanticism, The Power of Ideas, Three Critics of the Enlightenment, Freedom and its Betrayal and Liberty. As an exponent of the history of ideas Berlin was awarded the Erasmus, Lippincott and Agnelli Prizes; he also received the Jerusalem Prize for his lifelong defence of civil liberties. He died in 1997.