Robert Skidelsky
Robert Jacob Alexander, Baron Skidelsky, FBA (born 25 April 1939) is a British economic historian. He is the author of a three-volume award-winning biography of British economist John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946). Skidelsky read history at Jesus College, Oxford, and is Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick, England.
The Lord Skidelsky
British
None (Crossbench)
Labour (until 1981)
SDP (1981–88)
'Continuing' SDP (1988–90)
Conservative (1992–2001)
Early life[edit]
Skidelsky's parents, Boris Skidelsky and Galia Sapelkin, were British subjects of Russian ancestry, Jewish on his father's side and Christian on his mother's.[1] His father worked for the family firm L. S. Skidelsky,[2] which leased the Mulin coalmine in northern[3] Manchuria from the Chinese government in 1920.[4] Boris had three brothers, one of whom was the British novelist and bridge player and writer S. J. "Skid" Simon (1904–1948). In 1919, a factory was built by L. S. Skidelsky in Harbin for obtaining albumin from blood.[5]
When war broke out between Britain and Japan in December 1941, he and his parents were interned first in Manchuria then Japan and finally released in exchange for Japanese internees in England. He then went back to China with his parents in 1947, living for a little over a year in Tientsin (now Tianjin). They left for Hong Kong just before the Chinese Communists took the city.[2]
Education[edit]
From 1953 to 1958, Skidelsky was a boarder at Brighton College. He went on to read history at Jesus College, Oxford. Between 1961 and 1969 he was successively research student, senior student and research fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford. In 1967 he published his first book, Politicians and the Slump, based on his DPhil dissertation, which explores the ways in which British politicians handled the Great Depression.[6]
Academic career[edit]
During a two-year research fellowship at the British Academy Skidelsky published English Progressive Schools (1969) and began work on his biography of Oswald Mosley, which was published in 1975. In 1970, he became an associate professor of history in the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. However, the controversy surrounding the publication of his biography of Mosley, which some critics felt let Mosley off too lightly, led Johns Hopkins to refuse him tenure. Oxford also proved unwilling to give him a permanent post.
From 1976 to 1978, Skidelsky was Professor of History, Philosophy and European Studies at the Polytechnic of North London. In 1978, he was appointed Professor of International Studies at the University of Warwick, where he has since remained, although he joined the Economics Department as Professor of Political Economy in 1990. He has been a professorial fellow at the Global Policy Institute at London Metropolitan University, and a Honorary Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1994.[6] Since 2016 he has been a director and trustee of the School of Civic Education.[7] He is Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick.[8][9]
Skidelsky currently writes a column on economic history for Project Syndicate, an international media organization.[10]
Personal life[edit]
Skidelsky has two sons, Edward Skidelsky, a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Exeter;[26][27] and William Skidelsky, a journalist and author of Federer and Me: A Story of Obsession.