Curated category
Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford
- Frederick S. BoasFrederick Samuel Boas lived for ninety-five years, long enough to see the study of early modern drama transform from a gentleman's hobby into a rigorous…
- A. C. BradleyA. C. Bradley was once so dominant in the study of Shakespeare that a satirical poem imagined the playwright himself failing a civil service examination…
- Adam SmithAdam Smith took Charles Townshend on a tour of a tanning factory, and while discussing free trade, he walked straight into a huge tanning pit.
- Aldous HuxleyAldous Huxley died at 5:20 pm Pacific Standard Time on the 22nd of November 1963 - and almost nobody noticed. His death was overshadowed by the assassination…
- David Wootton (historian)David Wootton was born on the 15th of January 1952. He holds the title of Anniversary Professor of History at the University of York.
- Henry Edward ManningHenry Edward Manning died on the 14th of January 1892, and when his estate was settled, it came to just £3,527. For a man who had spent decades as the most…
- Jasper GriffinJasper Griffin arrived in the world on the 29th of May 1937. His early years unfolded under the roof of Christ's Hospital, a private school located in…
- John HicksJohn Richard Hicks was born on the 8th of April 1904 in Warwick, England, and by the time he died on the 20th of May 1989, he had reshaped the way economists…
- Arnold Toynbee (historian, born 1852)Arnold Toynbee died on the 9th of March 1883, aged thirty, after collapsing from exhaustion following two public lectures at St.
- William BeveridgeWilliam Beveridge died on the 16th of March 1963 with what his family reported as his last words: "I have a thousand things to do." He was 84.
- Alexis SandersonAlexis Sanderson is an English indologist whose scholarly life took a decisive turn when he left Oxford and spent six years in Kashmir learning from a Shaiva…
- H. J. RoseHerbert Jennings Rose once sat at Board 1 in a cable match between American and English universities. On the 23rd of March 1907, he drew his game against the…
- Jed S. RakoffJed S. Rakoff keeps a baseball signed by Mariano Rivera in a glass case on his desk. It is a small, telling detail about a man who has spent decades…
- John KeeganJohn Keegan spent 26 years teaching war to men who would fight it, yet he himself never fired a shot in anger. Born in Clapham, London, on the 15th of May…
- Robert SoutheyRobert Southey arrived at Balliol College, Oxford, carrying, by his own account, a head full of Rousseau and Werther and a heart full of poetry.
- James BurnhamJames Burnham was born in Chicago on the 22nd of November 1905, the son of an English railroad executive, and he died on the 28th of July 1987 in Kent…
- George SteinerFrancis George Steiner was born on the 23rd of April 1929 in Neuilly-sur-Seine near Paris. His right arm withered from birth yet his mother insisted he use…