| 1 | Name: | Professor Quentin Skinner | |
| Institution: | University of London | ||
| Year Elected: | 1997 | ||
| Class: | 3. Social Sciences | ||
| Subdivision: | 303. History Since 1715 | ||
| Residency: | International | ||
| Living? : | Living | ||
| Birth Date: | 1940 | ||
Quentin Skinner was Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University from 1996 to 2008. He is now Barber Beaumont Professor of the Humanities at Queen Mary, University of London. One of the most innovative as well as influential students of political thought in the history of the West now writing, he spent the years 1974-79 at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and is a valuable representative of the English and European scholarly communities. Dr. Skinner's historical writings have long been characterised by an interest in recovering the ideas of Renaissance republican authors. With John Pocock he is regarded as one of the two principal members of the influential "Cambridge School" of the study of the history of political thought. Dr. Skinner's particular contribution was to articulate a theory of interpretation which concentrated on recovering the author's intentions in writing classic works of political theory. Of continuing interest have been the works of Machiavelli, Thomas More and Thomas Hobbes. Dr. Skinner received his M.A. from Cambridge in 1962 and has served the university ever since as a lecturer and professor. He is a member of the British Academy and the American Academy of Arts & and Sciences and the recipient of the Wolfson Literary Award (1979). His publications include Foundations of Modern Political Thought (2 vol., 1978); Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes (1996); Liberty Before Liberalism (1998); and Hobbes and Republican Liberty (2008). | |||