Max Beloff, Baron Beloff

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Max Beloff, Baron Beloff (born July 2, 1913 in London , † March 22, 1999 in London) was a British historian and conservative peer . From 1974 to 1979 he was director of the University College of Buckingham, now the University of Buckingham .

Early life

Max Beloff was born on July 2, 1913 in the London district of Islington and was the eldest child of a Jewish family that had moved from Russia to England in 1903 . He was the older son of a family of five children owned by the merchant Simon Beloff and his wife Marie. His sister Anne married the German-born Nobel Prize laureate and biochemist Ernst Boris Chain in 1948 . The psychologist John Beloff was his brother. Young Max Beloff attended St Paul's School and then studied modern history at Corpus Christi College (Oxford)where he graduated with excellent results (research fellow 1993). The alleged descent of Beloff's family from the House of David as descendants of Rabbi Meir Katzenellenbogen, the Maharam of Padua, is described in detail in The Unbroken Chain . 1973 Beloff was elected a member ( Fellow ) of the British Academy .

Political opinions

In his 1992 autobiographical work An Historian in the Twentieth Century , Beloff discusses his political journey. He had been initially characterized conservative in school, had then during his university education from socialism felt attracted and finally transformed after the Second World War the Liberals . In discussions about educational standards in the 1960s, he found that the Labor government was hostile to his idea of ​​a non-state-funded university and that the Liberal party was increasingly moving to the left . Therefore, after his retirement in 1979, he tended to join the Conservative Party.

Beloff, who had two sons from his marriage to Helen Dobrin in 1938 and had been a life peer since 1981 , spoke frequently in the House of Lords about school and constitutional matters and continued his literary activities beyond his parliamentary appearances. A strict Eurosceptic , he claimed that British history was incompatible with Britain's membership of the European Union , which led him to write European Union: A Dialogue of the Deaf , published in 1996 .

Towards the end of his life, Beloff also emerged as a staunch opponent of the House of Lords Act passed as part of New Labor's constitutional reforms, which abolished the direct inheritance of many seats in the House of Lords. In many parliamentary speeches, Beloff defended the inheritance principle but died before the law was passed. He last spoke at the House of Lords on March 22, 1999 and died that same day at the age of 85.

career

In 1954 Beloff held this year's Albert Shaw Lectures on Diplomatic History at Johns Hopkins University ; these lectures were later published as Foreign Policy and the Democratic Process .

Beloff became President of the University of Haifa , knighted in 1980 and made a Life Peer, Baron Beloff, of Wolvercote in the county of Oxfordshire , in 1981 . After his death, Buckingham University founded the Max Beloff Center for the Study of Liberty in January 2005 .

Works

  • Public order and popular disturbances 1660-1714 , 1938
  • The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia 1929-41 , 2 vols., 1947/1949
  • Thomas Jefferson and American Democracy , 1948
  • Soviet Policy in the Far East, 1944-51 , 1953
  • The Age of Absolutism, 1660-1815 , 1954
  • Foreign Policy and the Democratic Press , 1955
  • Europe and the Europeans , 1957
  • The Great Powers , 1959
  • New Dimensions in Foreign Policy , 1961
  • The United States and the Unity of Europe , 1963
  • The Balance of Power , 1968
  • Imperial Sunset-Volume 1: Britain's Liberal Empire 1897–1921 , 1969
  • The American Federal Government , 1969
  • The Future of British Foreign Policy , 1969
  • The Intellectual in Politics , 1970
  • The Tide of Collectivism- Can it be Turned? , 1978
  • The State and its servants , 1979
  • The Government of the United Kingdom (with Gillian Peele), 1980
  • Wars and Welfare: Britain, 1941-1945 , 1984
  • Imperial Sunset-Volume 2: Dream of Commonwealth 1921-42 , 1989
  • An Historian in the Twentieth Century , 1992
  • Britain and European Union: Dialogue of the Deaf , 1996

Works edited by Beloff include :

  • History: Mankind and his story , 1948
  • The Federalist , 1948
  • The Debate on the American Revolution, 1761–1783 , 1949
  • Europe and the Europeans: an International Discussion , 1957
  • On the track of tyranny: essays presented by the Wiener Library to Leonard G. Montefiore , 1960
  • American Political Institutions in the 1970s (with Vivian Vale), 1975
  • Beyond the Soviet Union: the fragmentation of power , 1997

literature

Remarks

  1. ^ Nevil Johnson: Obituary of Lord Beloff, The Independent , March 26, 1999 ( online ).
  2. ↑ David Walker, Unrelenting Foe of Academic Marxism , The Times , Nov. 8, 1988.
  3. ↑ The Times, March 24, 1999, p. 23.
  4. ^ Neil Rosenstein: "The Unbroken Chain: Biographical Sketches and Genealogy of Illustrious Jewish Families from the 15th-20th Century." Volumes 1 and 2, revised edition, CIS Publishers, New York, 1990. ISBN 0-9610578-4-X .
  5. ^ Deceased Fellows. British Academy, accessed May 3, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Nevil Johnson: Obituary: Lord Beloff . In: Independent , March 26, 1999. Retrieved April 29, 2012. 
personal data
SURNAME Beloff, Max, Baron Beloff
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English historian and politician
DATE OF BIRTH July 2, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH March 22, 1999
Place of death London