Bertrand Rusell (1872-1970), was a British mathematician and philosopher. He received the 1950 Nobel prize for literature for his writings "as a defender of humanity and freedom of thought."
Russell first gained attention in 1903 with his book Principies of Mathematics. With Alfred North Whitehead. he wrote Principia Mathematica (1910-1913), which opened a new era in the study of the foundations of mathematics. Russell wrote o ver 40 books on such subjects as philosophy, education, politics, and sex. Among them are Mysticism and Logic (1918), Marriage and Morals (1929), The Conquest of Happiness (1930). Education and the Social Order (1932), Human Society in Ethics and Politics (1954), and Has Man a Future? (1962). Russell's outspokenness and liberal views involved him in many controversies. During World War I, he was dismissed from Cambridge University and imprisoned because of his pacifist views. In 1940, protestes against his radical views on religion and morals caused the College of the City of New York to cancel his appointment as a professor. Attempts to oust him from Harvard University the same year failed. In the early 1960's, Russell led pacifist moves to ban nuclear weapons. He was imprisoned briefly in 1962 for these activities.
Russell was born near Trelleck, Wales. He was graduated from Cambridge University in 1894, and worked briefly in the British embassy in Paris. Then he went to Germany, where he wrote his first book, German Social Democracy, in 1896. He came to the United States to lecture at Harvard in 1914. He also taught at the University of Peking in China, the University of Chicago, and the University of California.
