Historically famous critics

George Orwell

1903-1950 · British · 20th century

British writer who exposed totalitarianism, imperialism, and the corruption of political language

Born Eric Arthur Blair, Orwell turned firsthand experience of poverty, colonial policing, and the Spanish Civil War into a lifelong assault on tyranny and dishonesty. His satirical fable Animal Farm and his dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-four dissected how power corrupts revolutions and how states bend language to control thought. He earns his place among the great critics because terms he coined, from Big Brother to doublethink, still name the abuses he warned against.