Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997) was renowned for his work on ideals of liberty in democratic societies. He was born in Latvia and educated at Oxford. He was president of Wolfson College, Oxford, from 1966 to 1975. He is famous for his distinction between “positive” and “negative liberty” and his criticism of Marxist ideas of history. Berlin was a brilliant and elegant speaker and delivered lectures on the British Broadcasting Corporation, often without notes. Berlin’s major works include Historical Inevitability, Two Concepts of Liberty (1959), Four Essays on Liberty (1969), Russian Thinkers (1978), Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas (1979), Personal Impressions (1980), The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas (1990), and The Sense of Reality: Studies in Ideas and Their History (1996).