Past Masters (book series)

Past Masters is an Oxford University Press book series published from 1980. Directly inspired by Isaiah Berlin's approach to the history of ideas, the series was created by Henry Hardy in 1980, with Keith Thomas as General Editor. Its aim was to provide a brief, lively introduction to the ideas and beliefs of important thinkers from the past who have influenced the way we think today.^[1] In 1995 it was expanded to form the Very Short Introductions series, in which a number of Past Masters were subsequently republished.