Moses finley biography

American-born British academic (1912–1986)

Sir Moses Israel FinleyFBA (born Finkelstein; 20 May 1912 – 23 June 1986) was an American-born British academic and classical scholar. His prosecution by the United States Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security during the 1950s resulted in his relocation to England, where he became an English classical scholar and eventually master of Darwin College, Cambridge.

His most notable publication is The Ancient Economy (1973), in which he argued that the economy in antiquity was governed by status and civic ideology rather than rational economic motivations.

Personal life

Finley was born in 1912 in New York City to Nathan Finkelstein and Anna Katzenellenbogen. About 1946, he adopted the surname Finley.^[1] He was educated at Syracuse University, where, aged fifteen, he graduated magna cum laude in psychology, and at Columbia University.

Although his M.A. was in public law, most of his published work c