Russell Bertrand

Bertrand Russell lived from 1872 to 1970, a period during which Britain moved from the height of its imperial power into a time of profound postwar change. In the late nineteenth century, Britain was a major industrial power. Its society was changing as cities and industrial work expanded and people campaigned for political and social rights. At the same time, scientific progress raised new questions about knowledge and the nature of the world.

The First World War (1914–1918) divided European societies and curtailed individual freedoms in the name of the war effort. Russell opposed Britain’s participation in the war, and as a result he lost his academic position and was imprisoned. After the war, the Russian Revolution and political unrest changed the debate about how society should be organized. In Britain, economic hardship and labour unrest, including the General Strike of 1926, heightened social tensions and intensified public debate about rights and the economy.

The Great Depression following the 1929 crash, the rise of fascism and Nazism, and the Second World War created an atmosphere of political and economic insecurity. Russell’s attitude towards war did not remain unchanged: although he had opposed the First World War, the threat posed by Nazism led him to regard resistance to Hitler as necessary.

After 1945, the use of the atomic bomb and the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union brought the danger of nuclear war to the centre of international politics. At the same time, decolonization gradually reduced the British Empire as new states gained independence. In the final years of his life, Russell spoke out in support of nuclear disarmament and against the war in Vietnam, in a world that had changed profoundly since the one into which he was born.