Photo: Peter Stone / CC BY-SA 4.0 (source: Wikimedia Commons)
My Take
Skinner is the kind of scholar I find quietly heroic. He never chased the spotlight, yet as a founder of the Cambridge School he reshaped how we read political thought entirely, insisting we hear ideas in their own historical voice rather than judging them by ours. The Balzan and Wolfson prizes and the Regius chair at Cambridge are real markers of substance, not hype. What impresses me most is the patience: spending a lifetime tracing the meaning of a single word in context. That intellectual stubbornness rarely trends, but it endures, and I suspect his influence will only deepen with time.
Overview
Quentin Robert Duthie Skinner (born 26 November 1940) is a British intellectual historian. He is regarded as one of the founders of the Cambridge School of the history of political thought. He has won numerous prizes for his work, including the Wolfson History Prize in 1979 and the Balzan Prize in 2006. Between 1996 and 2008 he was Regius Professor of History at the University of Cambridge.
Summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Quentin Skinner
- Name (Japanese)
- クェンティン・スキナー
- Reading
- くぇんてぃん・すきなー
- Born
- November 26, 1940 (age 85)
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Sagittarius / Dragon
- Origin
- Oldham, United Kingdom
- Blood type
- Private
- Height
- Private
- Agency
- Private
- Occupation
- philosopher / historian / university teacher / political scientist
2. Background
- Elementary school
- Private
- Junior high
- Private
- High school
- Private
- University
- Gonville and Caius College
Awards & achievements
- 2006 Balzan Prize
- 2008 Bielefeld Science Prize
- 1979 Wolfson History Prize
- 2001 Benjamin E. Lippincott Award
- Fellow of the British Academy
- Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
3. Relationships
- Spouse
- Private
- Children
- Private
- Parents
- Private
- Siblings
- Private
4. Personality
Motto
Private
6. Links
Philosopher — see all → · Historian — see all → · More people from United Kingdom →
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-02
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.