Born in 1956, I studied at the University of Cambridge where I took my B:A: in 1979 and my PhD in 1985 with a thesis on the relationship between Hegels philosophies of history and religion. I have also studied in Germany at the universities of Freiburg im Breisgau 1977-1978 and Tubingen 1982-1983. Since then I have taught at the universities of  Liverpool 1985-1988, Cambridge 1988-1994 and since then as Reader in German Intellectual History at Birkbeck College of the University of London, an institution which specialises in the education of working people. My main research interest is in the question of intercultural and interfaith communication, particularly in the context of the linguistic and political philosophy of Wilhelm von Humboldt and some modern responses to it, especially in the work of Martin Buber and Jurgen Habermas