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Sir Isaiah Berlin, OM (6 June 1909 – 5 November 1997) was a Russian-British philosopher, historian of ideas and liberal, regarded as one of the leading thinkers of the twentieth century, and as the dominant liberal scholar of his generation. He excelled as an essayist, lecturer, conversationalist and raconteur; and as a brilliant speaker who delivered, rapidly and spontaneously, richly allusive and coherently structured material. He translated works by Turgenev from Russian into English and, during the war, worked for the British Diplomatic Service. The Independent stated that "Isaiah Berlin was often described, especially in his old age, by means of superlatives: the world's greatest talker, the century's most inspired reader, one of the finest minds of our time... there is no doubt that he showed in more than one direction the unexpectedly large possibilities open to us at the top end of the range of human potential".