Becoming Teodor - from War Child to Visionary Professor

From wartime refugee to revolutionary scholar—one man’s extraordinary journey through history, exile, and ideas. 

Becoming Teodor charts the remarkable life of Teodor Shanin, a Jewish child forced to flee Eastern Europe during the chaos of World War II, who rose—against all odds—to become one of the most influential social scientists of the 20th century. Born into political upheaval and shaped by a lifetime of exile, Teodor's early years were marked by loss, displacement and survival. But out of this turmoil emerged a brilliant mind—one that would go on to challenge Western academic orthodoxy, pioneer the study of peasant societies, and reshape how we understand development, modernity, and social change.

This powerful memoir is more than a personal history—it’s a window into the ideological battlegrounds of postwar Europe, Soviet Russia, and postcolonial thought. Shanin's academic legacy is as bold as his life: founding the Department for Peasant Studies at the University of Manchester, shaping global development policy, and mentoring generations of radical thinkers.

For readers of Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, Tara Westover’s Educated, and fans of political memoirs like The World As It Is by Ben Rhodes, this is a profound meditation on resilience, identity, and the role of the public intellectual in a fractured world.  See more about Teodor Shanin here