Isaiah Berlin
Born in 1909
History
Philosophy
Politics
Sir Isaiah Berlin was a prominent 20th-century philosopher and historian of ideas.
Born in Riga, he became the first Jewish person elected to a fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford.
Berlin held various prestigious positions, including Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at Oxford and President of the British Academy.
He is best known for his essay "Two Concepts of Liberty," which explores negative and positive liberty.
Berlin supported negative liberty and was critical of totalitarianism.
His work on liberal theory has had a lasting influence, and he was a leading intellectual voice against Communism during the Cold War.
