Finley, M I (1912–1986)

US-born British historian. McCarthyism forced him to emigrate to England. He taught at Cambridge, became a British subject in 1962 and was knighted in 1979. Greatly influenced by Marx and Weber, he wrote pioneering works in social and economic history.

He was born in New York City. A victim of the McCarthy era, he was sacked by Rutgers in 1952. In Britain, he changed his name and began his Cambridge teaching career, first as a lecturer, then a professor, and later as master of Darwin College. His works include The World of Odysseus (1954), Early Greece: The Bronze and Archaic Ages (1970), The Ancient Economy (1973), and The Use and Abuse of History (1975).