Ernest Gellner

Ernest Gellner (1925–95) was a British-Czech philosopher and social anthropologist who joined the staff of the London School of Economics in 1949. In 1984, he became William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology at Cambridge. For the last four years, he has also been Research Professor at the Central European University in Prague, where he is Director of the Centre for the Study of Nationalism. His many books include Words and Things (1959), Thought and Change (1964), Nations and Nationalism (1983), Plough, Sword and Book (1988), and Conditions of Liberty (1994).