Emeritus Professor at the Department of Sociology. He is a life fellow of King's College, Cambridge. Biography Born on 18 January 1938, Giddens was born and raised in Edmonton, London, and grew up in a lower-middle-class family, son of a clerk with London Transport. He attended Minchenden Grammar School. He was the first member of his family to go to university. Giddens received his undergraduate academic degree in joint sociology and psychology at the University of Hull in 1959, followed by a master's degree at the London School of Economics supervised by David Lockwood and Asher Tropp. He later gained a PhD at King's College, Cambridge. In 1961, Giddens started working at the University of Leicester where he taught social psychology. At Leicester, considered to be one of the seedbeds of British sociology, he met Norbert Elias and began to work on his own theoretical position. In 1969, Giddens was appointed to a position at the University of Cambridge, where he later helped create the Social and Political Sciences Committee (SPS, now HSPS). Giddens worked for many years at Cambridge as a fellow of King's College and was eventually promoted to a full professorship in 1987. He is cofounder of Polity Press (1985). From 1997 to 2003, he was Director of the London School of Economics and a member of the advisory council of the Institute for Public Policy Research. He was also an adviser to Tony Blair. It was Giddens' Third Way political approach that has been Blair's guiding political idea. He has been a vocal participant in British political debates, supporting the centre-left Labour Party with media appearances and articles (many of which are published in the New Statesman). He was given a life peerage in June 2004 as Baron Giddens, of Southgate in the London Borough of Enfield and sits in the House of Lords for the Labour Party. He is the recipient of many academic honours. Work Overview Giddens, the author of over 34 books and 200 articles, essays and reviews, has contributed and written about most notable developments in the area of social sciences, with the exception of research design and methods. He has written commentaries on most leading schools and figures and has used most sociological paradigms in both micro and macrosociology. His writings range from abstract, metatheoretical problems to very direct and 'down-to-earth' textbooks for students. His textbook, Sociology (9th edition, Polity), has