Soros, George (1930-…), is an American businessman who became known for his wealth and philanthropy (charity). Soros made his fortune as an investor in currencies. His philanthropic foundations have been known for promoting democratic governance, freedom of expression, and human rights around the world. Some of Soros’s positions on political and social policy have been controversial.
Soros was born on Aug. 12, 1930, in Budapest, Hungary. In 1947, he left Hungary to study at the London School of Economics in England. He graduated in 1952 with a bachelor’s degree. In 1956, Soros moved to the United States and eventually made his fortune there. Soros became an American citizen in 1961.
In the late 1970’s and the 1980’s, Soros established foundations with large sums of his own money to help people in Hungary, the Soviet Union, and other Eastern European countries. After the Soviet Union broke up into a number of independent countries in 1991, Soros gave money to aid the new nations. His contributions were designed especially to help them establish democratic institutions. Also in 1991, Soros founded the Central European University in Budapest.
Soros has written more than a dozen books. They include The Alchemy of Finance (1987), Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism (2000), George Soros on Globalization (2002), The Bubble of American Supremacy: The Costs of Bush’s War in Iraq (2004), The Age of Fallibility: The Consequences of the War on Terror (2006), The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means (2008), and In Defense of Open Society (2019), a collection of Soros’s writings.
