John W. Burton

John W. Burton was born on March 2, 1915 in Melbourne, Australia. He was educated at Newington College, Sydney, the University of Sydney, and the London School of Economics. Burton’s early career was marked with academic as well as diplomatic success. He was part of the Australian delegation sent to San Francisco after World

Joseph Schumpeter

A product of the waning years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Joseph A. Schumpeter exemplified that heritage. Although a student of Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk and Friedrich von Wieser, Schumpeter was never really a footsoldier of the Austrian School. After a quick doctorate at Vienna, Schumpeter roamed about as something of a footloose lawyer until he

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Joseph V. Stalin (Josif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili)

Joseph Stalin was the second leader of the Soviet Union. His real name was Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, and he was also known as Koba (a Georgian folk hero) to his closest sphere. The name “Stalin” (derived from combining Russian stal, “steel” with “Lenin”) originally was a conspirative nickname; however, it stuck to him and

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Leon Trotsky (Lev Davidovich Bronstein)

Leon Trotsky was born on October 26, 1879, son of a hard-working, thrifty, and well-to-do jewish farmer, in the southern part of Ukraine. The family valued education highly, and when Leon Trotsky was about nine years old they let him move to the city of Odessa, to stay with his ‘uncle’ and to go

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Louis-Auguste Blanqui

Louis-Auguste Blanqui, French revolutionary socialist and leader of many uprisings against the 19th century regime in France, was born at Puget-Théniers. He studied both law and medicine, but found his real vocation in politics, and quickly became a champion of the most advanced opinions. He took an active part in the July Revolution of

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Mancur Olson

Mancur Olson is recognized as one of a handful of scholars responsible for changing the field of economics to ensure that politics became an integral part of economic thinking and policy formation. His work emphasized that a country’s economic policies and the quality of its legal institutions primarily determine its economic performance. Two books

Mao Zedong

One of the most prominent Communist theoreticians, Mao’s ideas on revolutionary struggle and guerrilla warfare were extremely influential, especially among Third World revolutionaries. Of Hunanese peasant stock, Mao was trained in Chinese classics and later received a modern education. As a young man he observed oppressive social conditions, becoming one of the original members

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Michael Bakunin (Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin)

Michael Bakunin was born on May 18, 1814 in the Russian province of Tvar, one hundred and fifty miles northwest of Moscow. He received his primary and secondary education in Italy. At the tender age of fifteen, Bakunin was sent to artillery school in St. Petersburg. Bakunin was expected to pursue a military career

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Niccolo Machiavelli

Ideas – Wisdom in the ways of the world can be achieved by careful observation of how people act an a study of history. – Human nature is such that individuals will seek gratification of their listing for power, pleasures, and profit. – The essential feture of all society struggle and intense competitiveness. –

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Nicos Poulantzas

Nicos Poulantzas, a Greek political scientist and euro-communist activist, was born in Athens. In 1960, he moved to France, where he lived and worked during the 60s and 70s.. His most famous works were Political Power and Social Classes, 1973 and Classes in Contemporary Capitalism, 1975. Nicos Poulantzas developed theories of social classes and

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Pierre Joseph Proudhon

French writer and political theorist, sometimes referred to as the father of modern anarchism. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was born in Besançon on January 15, 1809. Proudhon is a rarity among anarchist philosophers in that he was of quite humble peasant origins. He began his working life herding cows and doing chores at home. His mother, Catherine

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Robert Alan Dahl

Professor Robert Alan Dahl is the Sterling Professor Emeritus of Political Science and the Senior Research Scientist in Sociology in Yale University. Major works of Robert Dahl – Congress and Foreign Policy – Politics, Economics and Welfare (with C.E. Lindblom) – A Preface to Democratic Theory – Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an

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Robert Michels

Born to a wealthy German family, Robert Michels is a sociologist best known for his book Political Parties, which contains a description of the iron law of oligarchy, which states that political parties and other membership organizations inevitably tend toward oligarchy,authoritarianism, and bureaucracy. He moved to Italy, where he became a revolutionary syndicalist. He died in Rome

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Rodney Barker

Rodney Barker is a professor of government in London School of Economics. He has published on political thinking in modern Britain, and on the legitimation of governments, subjects, and rebels. His most recent books in these fields are Political Ideas in Modern Britain in and after the Twentieth Century, published by Routledge in 1997,

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Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Born on May 4, 1870 this son of a Russian nobleman was to have a profound effect on the future of Russia and, indeed, the world. His father had been the son of a serf who had risen to post of inspector of schools in Simbirsk. While his mother was the daughter of land

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Albert Camus

Ideas – Absurdity lies in the opposition between the human need for meaning, on the one hand, and the unconcerned and meaningless world, on the other. – The presence of the absurd makes the problem of suicide the most fundamental philosophical question. – The absurd does not dictate death; what gives life its value

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Albert Einstein

Ideas – Coordinate space and time are not absolute, and the simultaneity of events is observer-dependent, but the speed of light is invariant (the special theory of relativity). – Mass is a form of energy, interchangeable with other forms according to the relation E = mc2. – Gravitational force is locally indistinguishable from acceleration

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Alfred Jules Ayer

Alfred Jules Ayer was lecturer and research fellow at Oxford’s Christ Church College from 1933 to 1944. Then he was fellow (1944-1945) and dean (1945-1946) of Wadham College. From 1946 to 1959 Ayer was Grote professor of the philosophy of mind and logic at the University of London, and in 1959 he became Wykeham

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Antisthenes

Antisthenes, an Athenian philosopher, was born in Athens about 440 BCE. of a Phrygian or Thracian mother, and thus was only a half citizen. In his youth he was engaged in military exploits, and acquired fame by the valor which he displayed in the battle of Tanagra. His first studies were under the direction

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Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier

Ideas – In any chemical reaction, mass is conserved: Matter is neither created nor destroyed; only the form of the matter is altered. – Precise measurements of the weights and volumes of substances involved in experiments must be made if the researcher hopes to explain the nature of the reactions. – Precision and uniformity

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