The English historian Sir Lewis Bernstein Namier (1888-1960) was a major force in introducing stronger empirical methods and social analysis into the study of 18th-century politics.

Lewis Namier was born Ludvik Bernstein near Warsaw on June 22, 1888. He studied briefly at Lausanne and the London School of Economics before entering Balliol College, Oxford. The Oxford years, from 1908 to 1912, were crucial in his development. There he acquired a British self-identity, changing his name to Namier (derived from his family's older name, Niemirowski); there he also acquired a deep and permanent interest in British history of the 18th century.

Throughout his life Namier was strongly attracted to the world of power and policy making. At the start of World War I, he enlisted in the British army but was discharged in 1915 because of poor eyesight. As a civilian, he served in the Propaganda Department (1915-1917), the Department of Information (1917-1918), and...