Ernest Belfort Bax

Born in Leamington Spa on July 23, 1854, Ernest Belfort Bax was an English writer, barrister, journalist, and socialist thinker. He studied in Germany as a young man, and that continental experience helped shape his long interest in philosophy and Marxist politics.

Bax became active in British socialist circles in the late 19th century and wrote widely on political theory, ethics, religion, and revolutionary history. Among his best-known books are The Ethics of Socialism, Religion of Socialism, Reminiscences and Reflexions of a Mid and Late Victorian, and studies of figures and events from the French Revolution, including Marat and the Paris Commune.

He died on November 26, 1926. Today he is remembered as a prolific and often combative public intellectual whose work captures the arguments, ideals, and tensions of socialist debate in late Victorian and Edwardian Britain.