Sir Bernard Crick, Political Theorist, Dies at 79

[depakid]

Source: NY Times

Sir Bernard Crick, a prominent democratic socialist and political theorist who also wrote the first complete biography of George Orwell, one of his heroes, died on Friday in Edinburgh. He was 79.

Sir Bernard, a moderate socialist, believed in gradual reform, social equality and the importance of citizen participation in politics. He often served as an adviser to top Labor politicians and in recent years devised the civics exam that new arrivals to Britain must pass before becoming citizens or permanent residents.

But it was “George Orwell: A Life,” published in 1980 and widely praised for its wealth of detail and its shrewd analysis of Orwell’s politics, that stood as his finest achievement. “Not only was it a pioneering biography, but it remains the best one there is,” said John Rodden, who has written several books on Orwell and edited The Cambridge Companion to George Orwell. “For anyone who wants the full story of his life explained comprehensively, at times exhaustively, it is the book to go to.”

Sonia Orwell, the writer’s widow, granted Sir Bernard full access to all Orwell material but later grew alarmed at his zealous inquiry into the facts, like whether Orwell shot the elephant he wrote about in his famous essay “Shooting an Elephant.” Shortly before her death, in 1980, she stripped the book of its imprimatur as an authorized biography.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/22/books/22crick.html