Tawney, Richard Henry (1880-1962), was a noted British historian and social philosopher. His most famous work, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (1926), related economic growth in the 1500's and 1600's to the spread of Protestantism. According to Tawney, such virtues as hard work and efficiency, stressed by the Protestants, contributed to the success of capitalism. In The Acquisitive Society (1920) and Equality (1931), Tawney argued for a more just and humane society based on the moderate and democratic socialism of the Fabian Socialists. Tawney was born in Calcutta (now Kolkata), India, and attended Oxford University. He was an expert on English history between 1485 and 1715. He was a professor of economic history at London University from 1931 to 1949.