# Isaiah Berlin

Sir isaiah berlin (6 June 1909 – 5 November 1997) was a Latvian-born British social and political theorist, philosopher and historian of ideas. Although he became increasingly averse to writing for publication, his improvised lectures and talks were sometimes recorded and transcribed, and many of his spoken words were converted into published essays and books, both by himself and by others, especially his principal editor from 1974, Henry Hardy. Born in Riga (now the capital of Latvia, then a part of the Russian empire) in 1909, he moved to Petrograd, Russia, at the age of six, where he witnessed the revolutions of 1917.